The Blank Impression
by QueenQeeko
Summary: Blank's history from when he meets Baku, through the game and after it. Blank attaches himself to his friends stronger than they know, and they only realize their loss after he's gone. Ch. 4 uploaded. Pending re-write.
1. Blank Introduction

Disclaimer: 

Okay, this sucks like hell.

Final Fantasy IX belongs to SquareSoft and not to me.

I make no money from this fanfic, I'm just a miserable excuse for a living existence who gets creative using Square's FF characters.

So this time it's about Blank, who doesn't belong to me either.

By Queen Qeeko

**The Blank Impression.**

Chapter 1 - Blank Introduction.

The castle city of Lindblum was just magnificent. Magnificent in a way as in, vastly cool. Like, really really amazing. Popular from most aspects, the Business and Industrial Districts the most popular places of all. And if you weren't there you'd be in some airship flying around on an Air Tour. The nobles of Treno and Alexandria were regular visitors, and of course, Lindblum attracted a whole load of the slightly and greatly less important people too.

But then, not _every_ part of the castle city was successful. 

The Theatre District had had a small crash in popularity since the last play of "Mogsy Magic". Oh how the script writers wept. And of course, Business and Industrial workers laughed at their sudden drop in public appeal. And so it was, most, if not all of the actors, even the best of the brilliently best, were unemployed. Okay, so the Theatre District had not had a small crash. It was a huge one.

In a remote corner of the Theatre District a man stepped out of a small theatre bar with a loud _"Don't come back!!!" _shouted after him. The man whirled around, seized a large pot plant in one hand and shouted back: "The great Baku won't come back, he's a far better actor than any of you try-hards will ever be!!!" before promptly tossing the pot plant straight into the bar. The pot disagreed painfully with the head of the hippo-like clerk, and he fell clumsily to the floor. Outside, Baku's pointy ears pricked up at the muffled thud from inside the bar. He then set off in search of another chance of acting employment.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

_~2 years later.~_

"Get back here you little thief!!!"

"No WAY!!!"

Baku spun on his heel at his spot in front of the Business District's weapon shop window. Upon hearing those frantic voices Baku turned and saw the Business D's Synth shop keeper, plowing down the street towards him. A short distance ahead of the Synth keeper, also hurtling along the street, was a small boy. He was tripping over his large muddie T-shirt every now and then, and he had red shoulder length hair that was flapping in his stitch covered face. Reddie brown anyway, whatever.

"Stop that kid!!!" the Synth keeper shouted to anyone in particular. The people in the street, rather than stop the child, drew apart to allow him to run through. It didn't change much, the boy was stumbling uncontrollably and running into people along the way.

It was about then that Baku made up his mind out of sheer curiousity. He stepped outward just as the child was about to wizz past and caught him by a handful of his oversized T-shirt's colar. Baku yanked him back as gently as he could for his large build, but still caused the child to choke a little.

"Thank you sir!!!" the Synth keeper exclaimed happilly as he slowed down, approaching Baku. Baku pulled the boy away from the Synth keeper when he tried to grab him, tucking the boy under his arm, ignoring his parthetic squirming and kicking.

"What's the kid done wrong, SIR?" Baku didn't like Synth shops or their keepers very much. Those dratted people charge like wounded bulls.

"What's he done?!!" the Synth keeper roared, "that little $#*%  walked into the store and stole my latest works and my cleaning rags!!"

It was only after hearing this that Baku noticed the objects the boy clung to. Under the boy's right arm were a pair sheathed short swords, and using his left hand he held a bloody cloth over his left eye. His right eye was tightly shut as he struggled endlessly and pointlessly to free himself. A few rocks fell out of the pocket of his brown shorts. Baku guessed they were for throwing at the Synth keeper.

Baku pryed one sword out of the boy's small hand and unsheathing it exaimined the blade.

"Are you sure they're yer 'latest' works? Look fairly ordinary to me" Baku said, not looking up and still holding the boy under his left arm.

"YES!!! They are! And that dratted boy stole them out of my st--"

"And the blade is kinda bent there."

"But--"

"And this hilt is a very old make."

"AND they still don't belong to him!!!"

"Let's ask the boy" Baku suggested and turned his attention to the child, who was still wriggling.

"Kid" the boy squirmed more frantically now Baku was talking to him, "why'd ya steal those steels?"

"Needed a blade to protect myself! Needed somethin' for my eye! I need to eat too! So I gotta hunt!!" the boy exclaimed defiently, not giving up his struggle.

"You can't hunt with a weapon you can hardly lift, kid" Baku reasoned.

This caused the boy to stop all movement entirely. He opened his uncovered eye, but Baku could swear that the boy wasn't looking at anything.

"And I need to make a living! I can't sell what I don't have!" the Synth keeper protested.

"Why? How much are they?" Baku asked, sheathing the sword again and returning it to the boy who grabbed it protectively.

"9000gil!" the Synth keeper spat "a lot of work went into those!"

Of all the things that could be bought with 9000gil! Damn Baku hated these damn Synth keepers!

"And like I said, I can't sell what I don't have!" 

"Fine, you just sold them".

"EH?!!!"

Baku dug his free hand into his back pocket, withdrew about 10,000gil and tossed it at the Synth keeper.

"There" he said "gimme 1000 back"

The Synth keeper did this silently, and turning to return to the store after this unexpected 'sale' he shot a hateful look at the boy who didn't seem to notice it.

"Come on kid" Baku said setting off without dropping the boy from his tight grasp.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It was late afternoon when Baku returned to his home in the Theatre District. The small house was long overdue for rent, and Baku knew that now it was going to be harder to comply with the landlord's fee. He set the boy down on the table in the middle of the room. The child made no protest to this, he merely sat, clutching his precious twin swords with his right arm, his left hand still holding the bloody rag over his left eye. His uncovered eye was also closed. Baku figured the kid was tired from all his earlier resistance. 

Baku was busy filling a small hand basin with clean water, talking about how lucky the boy was that he ran into him and saved his hide.

"Okay kid, let's see the damage" Baku said, bringing the basin and a clean rag over to the boy.

"Easy for you to say" the boy muttered quietly.

Baku set the basin and cloth down on the table where the boy sat, then drew up a chair in front of him. When Baku touched the bloody cloth, the boy winced away roughly.

"Hey hey hey! Calm down, I'm not gonna hurt ya, kid. I'm just gonna take a look at yer wound, that's all" Baku explained.

The child slowly turned towards Baku, as if considering whether this large, funny looking man was trustworthy. Not like he could tell whether he was funny looking though. There were plenty of nasty people around, the Synth Keeper for one. Finally he decided to give in, and still hugging his swords, drew his cloth away from his eye.

Baku had to bite his tounge to stop himself from cursing a blue streak.

The crimson mess upon this boy's young face made Baku pity the the kid all the more. Baku was sure that the wound was going to be a gash or something in the boy's eyebrow or something like that, but not in the actual EYE.

"...Geez" he breathed.

The wound looked as though the eye had been stabbed with a blunt object, bruising the skin around it and the whole lot swelling into a horrible crater of blood. No wonder the kid constantly had his other eye tightly closed too. His face probably hurt like buggery.

"How the hell did you manage to do this to yourself, kid?" Baku asked, dipping the clean rag into the water and dabbing lightly around the child's eye. Or what used to be an eye.

The boy didn't say a thing, he just held as still as possible while Baku cleaned the wound.

_'The kid probably isn't too thrilled about all this'_ Baku thought, _'Pretty tough not to cry out though'._

He rinsed the blood out of the rag in the basin.

"How old are ya, kid?" the large man enquired.

"Four" the boy replied. His voice seemed so small all of a sudden.

_'Shit, not too bad behaviour and reactions from a four year old kid' _Baku mused. 

The water was becoming quite red now.

"You can open yer other eye you know, it's not as if a whole-in-one is gonna blind ya" Baku kicked himself mentally for his stupid comment. That was hardly gonna make the boy feel any better.

"But it did" the boy said quietly.

"What?"

"It did"

"You mean?"

The child nodded his head sadly, and opened his other eye. It was an amazing green, easy to get lost into. But the boy wasn't focusing on anything, not even staring into space. His eye wasn't looking at anything, it was just opened.

"You ARE blind" Baku said quietly once he found his voice.

"I was already blind in my right eye" the boy explained, "but I could see out my left one. Now I..."

Baku sighed as the boy pointed towards his face, not pointing in the right spot because he couldn't see. 

"...Now I can't see at all" the boy finished.

Satisfied with the cleansing of the wound, Baku dumped the now bright red rag into the basin and waved a hand in front of the boy's opened eye. He didn't notice the movement, he just sat there in front of Baku. The blank expression on his face was most unreadable.

"Don't move, I'm just gettin' some bandages for ya" Baku said, getting up. The boy nodded obediantly. Baku returned shortly with some bandages and dressings. Suprisingly, the child's eyelid was not damaged in the slightess way. Baku closed the eyelid then he wrapped the boy's wound up the best he could. He then gathered the boy up again and carried him into a small bedroom. He layed the child on one of the beds with a promise of some food after he woke up.

"Don't go anywhere" Baku said before quietly stepping out, but a thought came to him before he closed the door.

"Hey", he asked the child, "just what is yer name?"

There was an awkward silence.

"I don't have one" the boy replied.

"Oh, well, nevermind. My name is Baku" the large man announced, then stepped out again, closing the door.

The child rolled onto his side, using his now free left hand to feel the surface he lay on. The two sheathed swords were still tight in his grasp. He could still tell about some things around the place even for lack of vision, like the fact that 'Baku' would soon have to introduce who the third person with them was.

Back out in the main room, Baku paced around, thinking of what to do next. Here he was, still only getting by with the pay from minor gigs in some places and now he had another mouth to feed.

"Boss" a quiet yet strong voice came from the darkess corner of the room. 

Baku sighed. 

"What is it, Marcus?" he asked, turning to face the 'third person'.

In the corner sat a small goblin like child, about five years old, his arms crossed, looking at Baku expectantly.

"Who was that?" Marcus asked, voice dripping with innocent curiousty that only a child can master.

Baku sighed again. Yeah, he knew that Marcus had been sitting there the entire time he cleaned up that stray kid, and was really thankful that the smart alec brat had stayed put and kept his trap shut throughout that whole little episode.

"He's some kid I rescued from bein' turned into a Leather Wrist" Baku announced. He could think of some things he'd like to turn that Synth keeper into...

"He looked scared" Marcus said, coming out of the forming shadow, now it was getting on in the day. He wore a grey sleeveless shirt with stained green trousers, and a huge belt that went over his left shoulder and under his right arm.

"You can tell?" Baku raised a bushy eyebrow. That stray kid's expression was nearly always as blank as a new unused, unstained piece of paper.

Marcus grinned, "Well kinda".

"Bah" said Baku, "Well I'm gonna go out and get some chow for us and that kid. You stay here and keep an eye on 'im".

"Gotcha Boss" Marcus gave a mock salute and waltz over to the bedroom door.

Baku left the buliding swearing to himself that if that little so-and-so did anything to that stray boy he'd pin Marcus to the Lindblum Castle's docking bay.

Marcus watched him leave. Then he entered the bedroom.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Baku punched and kicked and thumped and flogged himself mentally. Stupid, stupid, stupid! The worse thing he could had done was leave the stray kid with Marcus! That boy was always making a nuisence of himself. Loyal to the last sentence of imperial duties he was to Baku, but a pain in the ass all the same. But it was unavoidable, he had to go out and he needed someone to stay home.

Now what was he doing again? Oh yeah, buying some food and talking to that Items shop guy.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Marcus stood quietly next to the door of the bedroom. So the Boss had brought in a new kid eh? Sure sure, like this stumbeling burden could be of any use. Marcus drew closer to the boy who layed curled up on the farther most bed. He seemed to be asleep, Marcus noting that he was still hanging onto those swords. Hmmm...Marcus reached over the boy, trying to get hold of one of the swords. He then gently began pulling it out from his grasp. 

Marcus' suprise was undescribable when a fist shot up and smashed straight into his nose. Marcus lept back with a yelp and the stray boy flew up to stand on the bed, dropping one sword at his feet and unsheathing the other.

"You bastard!" Marcus yelled, holding a bloody nose.

"You tried to steal my swords!" the stray boy yelled back.

"So what? You stole them to begin with!" Marcus began swabbing his nose with a spare rag from his pocket.

The stray boy paused a little, "how'd you know they were stolen?"

"I know coz the Boss has 9000gils less in his pocket".

"Boss?"

"You know who I mean, Baku!"

"What about him? You checked his pockets?"

"I always do".

There was a silent moment, both boys working the other out. 

"So uh, yah, whatever," Marcus started, "Anyway, I just wanted a look at those steels".

"You can see 'em from where you are" the stray boy announced.

Marcus turned red. He never took orders from anyone bar the Boss. But that was all part of his respect for the man who took him in off the streets.

"Whatsamatta? Think they're too special  for me to see 'em? 9000gils isn't much" said Marcus.

"I'm suprised you can count so high" the stray boy answered.

"Hey! C'mon, just lemme have a look!" Marcus pounced towards the stray boy, who dodged the young gobliny boy and ran across the room.

"You don't have to come close! You can see them fine from there!" he told Marcus.

"Well of course I can see them! I'm not blind like you!"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"So this kid, see? He can't see at all, not now he bunged up his eye, see? And he could still get some idea of direction as he ran, see?"

"Uh huh".

"And I just don't understand, see? How does he not run into stuff when he can't see?"

"And that's why you came to see me?"

"Yeah, you see my point?"

"Unfortunately".

For the past quarter hour the Item shop keeper had been listening to Baku explain the weirdness of his new descovery. So the kid could sense his surroundings, big deal. So could a lot of gifted blind people. 

"So if I bring this kid into the store could ya help 'im with his new lifestyle change?" Baku asked hopefully. With a kid like Marcus hanging about, that stray kid's was gonna have to learn to get around quickly.

"Maybe, but you'll have to take in an extra charge" the shop keeper offered.

He beckoned to Baku to follow him into the back room. Once there, the shop keeper pointed over to a very young boy of some odd desription sitting in one corner, chewing on a section of an old chariot wheel. 

"Oh you gotta be kiddin' me! What d'ya think I'm runnin'?! An orphanage?!" Baku sat down heavily.

"Would you rather this child stay in this dump with me?" the shop keeper asked.

Baku didn't answer him straight away. If he took yet another child in, then he would be sorta benefiting both kids. The stray one could learn to reconise his world _telepathically_ and this kid could get some place better to live in. But how the hell was Baku gonna take care of _three_ kids?? But then, having three sets of small hands could have its advantages...

Baku sighed, "What's the kid's name?".

"Cinna, come over here".

Cinna, roughly three years old, stood up clumsily, fixed his black shorts and dragging his wheel, waddled over to his new-to-be guardian. Or whatever.

"Cinna, you're getting a new home".

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Baku stumbled into his home. Not because he was tired, he was overwhelmed. He dropped his bag of groceries on the table and unloading the various bought objects, loosened the cap on a Potion for the stray boy. Cinna followed him, dragging a now smaller section of his chariot wheel. The young child rubbed his eyes wearily. 

"Bit tired are ya?" Baku asked him.

"Yesm" Cinna yawned. 

The boy followed Baku across the main room to the bedroom door before promptly running into him, and then looking up he questioned why the large man stopped so suddenly.

Baku pressed his ear to the door. There was loud scuffling inside, or maybe what sounded like...someone bashing another someone around. And muffled voices and yelps. Baku flew into the room, while the door went banging on the opposite wall. He leapt foward and grabbing Marcus by the back of his colar, separated the two boys who were fighting on the floor.

"Alright! How long's this been goin' on?!" Baku shouted, still holding Marcus aloft in one hand.

"It's his fault! He made fun of me for being blind!" accused the stray boy.

"You wouldn't let me see the swords!" Marcus shot back.

"They're mine! You wouldn't just _look_!"

"The Boss paid for them!"

"CUT IT OUT!!" Baku intervened.

Both boys froze, and Baku took a deep breath to calm himself.

"Okay," he said at last, "that's enough out of you two. Marcus, leave him alone. They're his swords, even if they're as big as he is. You kid, you could just let Marcus have a little look. He won't steal them from you, not while I'm around anyway. Yer' both gonna have to get along okay? I got _another_ kid out here that I gotta take care of, so you pair make a good impression".

Baku went out again to find Cinna asleep on the floor next to the wall.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As a result of the fight, the stray boy was nursing a red jaw and Marcus had a black eye. Cinna paid no mind to the fight and was more amused with the grumbling of the other two boys. Baku believed that neither of their injuries were worth a Potion, but the stray boy's left eye certainly deserved one. It remained pretty quiet between the two older boys, both wishing silent beratting on the other.

A week went by and Baku's _kids_ adapted quickly to the new family changes. The stray child had started his visits to the Item shop keeper to learn to understand his world a little better and he quickly became competent with his surroundings, so much that he was running errands for Baku all over the Theatre District. He had also aquired a leather band from Baku to put around the top of his head, at an angle to cover the abused eye. Marcus got along with Cinna very quickly, and while the stray boy had nothing against the odd looking three-year-old, he avoided Marcus like the plague. 

Much to the stray boy's excitement (and to Marcus' irritation), Baku had a sword harness designed for the boy's small build so that he no longer had to carry his heavy (heavy to him anyway) twin swords in his arms anymore. It fitted comfortably around his shoulders and waist by four leather straps and the sword sheaths sat crossed over on his back. The second advantage of this device was that it helped to strengthen the boy's muscles. After a few years of this, he'd eventually be able to fight.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

_~3 months later.~_

"Hey, look at that up there!" Marcus shouted to the other two boys.

The stray boy jumped down from a branch in a small nut tree and Cinna withdrew his head from a squid barrel. Both boys came up to Marcus' sides and turned their attention to the noted scene he'd found. 

"Up there" Marcus pointed to the red tiles of the building's roofs. 

High up on one of the rooftops, a small blond boy was running along in quite a hurry. Behind him were three other people, a man who looked related to a fish, an old woman with a sack of gysahl pickles on her back and the same man who had chased the stray boy: Business Dictrict's Synth shop keeper. The boy was wearing a blue vest with no undershirt and white trousers that cut off just below his knees. The boy appeared to have upset the three people very much, as he carried all bundled up in his arms a pillow case full of bread, a smaller sack of pickles and a large crowbar. He seemed neither bothered or worried about his situation as he jumped from one roof edge to another, far from it he looked rather pleased. 

Marcus, the stray boy and Cinna watched the chase for a full five minutes before it was abruptly cut short by the Synth keeper throwing a loose roof tile at the boy. The child tripped on the projectile and stumbled uncontrollably towards the edge.

"LOOK OUT!!" the stray boy shouted. Whether the boy on the rooftop heard him or not, it didn't matter. At last loosing his balance he slipped and fell over the side. The three persuers rushed over to the roof-end, their possessions forgotten, and peered over the edge. Only some shattered tiles, a loaf of bread and a few pickles layed on the ground at the end of the long drop.

"Must have rolled under from the impact" the fish-man suggested regrettably. The people turned away and returned to their stores. 

Marcus and the stray boy stood stock still, horified by the blond boy's sad end.

"Tail" said Cinna.

"What?" Marcus turned to him quizzically.

Cinna pointed to the roofedge the blond boy had dispeared over, and when neither Marcus or the stray boy understood his meaning he lead them back behind the corner of the buliding. There they found the boy, still clutching 90% of his original load, suspended under the overhang of the roof by a monkey tail. They never noticed his tail when he was being chased by his three '_v_ictims', but now it was very hard to miss. 

He looked thouroughly suprised that the three children had decovered him. He leaped down and ran away into the street, shouting some unintelligable exclaimation and ducked into a side alley. The three boys knew without asking each other that it was agreed they should find him. But first they grabbed the loaf of bread to share between them.

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"I wonder where he went" the stray boy wondered out loud.

They'd been searching for the enigma of a boy for two hours already. The boys had looked the entire Business District over and turned the Theatre District upside down. Now that they'd finished with the Industrial District, they were ready in their disapointment to return home. 

"I'm just gonna look around that wall again" Marcus announced. Said wall was on the outside of the Air Car station, where they had checked the inside of a sizable crack. If only it was a little larger, a child of similar size to the three boys would possibly fit through.

Taking another look at the hopeful location, the boys found nothing different from before.

"Lets just go home" the stray boy suggested.

"But I wanna know who that kid was!" complained Marcus.

"I do too, but we can't find him" the stray boy reasoned.

"What would you know? Maybe we can't find him cos _you_ can't _see_ him" Marcus sneered.

The stray boy was about to answer with a retort but stopped when Cinna asked, "That boy go home?".

"He might have, but I don't think he has a home" he said instead. 

"Well where else can we look for him?" Marcus asked.

"Theres no place else to hide here" said the stray boy.

"So?!" We could look somewhere else!" Marcus shouted, and a passing noble scolded him for disturbing the peace.

Marcus kicked a few rocks around, seemingly too stubborn to give up their fruitless search. The stray boy sighed audibly, and sat down on the ground, not at all in the mood to argue with the irritable gobliny boy. Cinna busied himself with picking the bark off the trunk of a tree.

"Well, are you thinking?" Marcus asked his companions after a few more moments of rock kicking.

"About what?" the stray boy asked in return. His face showed no expression, but his voice betrayed the blank look. He was very bored with all this.

"About where that kid went!" Marcus burst out in frustration.

"No, I'm waiting for you to stop" the stray boy replied. While it was a shame that they had lost track of the other kid, the stray boy didn't care that much anymore. Marcus on the other hand, was at his wits end with failure, and this smart alec (that the Boss seemed to always favour) was really getting on his nerves.

"Shut up!" he yelled at the other boy, and seizing one of the rocks on the ground threw it at him. Even impared vision didn't stop the stray boy from getting out of the way in time, and the rock instead went through the crack in the wall at such a sharp angle it almost would have bounced out again.

A soft "ow!" came through the wall.

The three boys stared dumbly at the wall, and strained their ears to hear anything else. After a short moment a gysahl pickle flew out a struck Marcus on the knee. It didn't hurt really, but Marcus almost lost it from there. He immediatly looked around for some other way into the wall, around the base on the ground, behind the tree, even back inside the station.  When he returned to the cracked wall again the stray boy and Cinna were nowhere to be found. 

"Ouch!" Marcus yelped as something else hit him on the head. He looked up for the source of object, and found the stray boy and Cinna high up among the tree's branches. Marcus spyed the seedpod in Cinna's pudgy hand, working out that one of those pods must have been the what got him. The stray boy pointed to the same crack they had been baffled with, and showed Marcus how it traveled far up the wall and gradually got wider until it created quite a large hole. 

Marcus was up into the tree and throwing himself into the interior of the Air Car station wall before Cinna could consume another seedpod. The stray boy and Cinna followed quickly behind, and the three boys found themselves in an almost hall like passage, roughly three feet wide. They could walk single file comfortably, but side by side in any formation was pushing it a bit. It was dark and dusty in the wall, with lots of cobwebs that looked like they'd been gathered up and pushed to the sides.

Luckily for them, the boys need not walk far anyway, as they were already standing infront of the monkey tailed boy, who looked both full and content. He apparently didn't care that the other boys had found him this time, he merely burped to prove the satisfaction of his meal. What was left of his lunch (namely a loaf of bread and a few pickles) layed scattered around the place he sat, with the crowbar by his left side.

"Um.., hi" the stray boy said awkwardly. He had little idea what to do at this point. They'd found the kid: objective one complete. Now what were they suppose to do? The monkey tailed boy waved back in response.

"Hey, I'm Marcus" Marcus informed the boy, "and this is 'Nameless' and Cinna, what's your name? The stray boy frowned at Marcus' descriptive nickname for him, and vowed to pay back an equally unfair favour to the gobliny boy once they'd returned home.

"Zidane" the monkey tailed boy said to answer Marcus' question.

"Why'd you steal all this stuff from those oldies?" Marcus continued.

 The boy who'd introduced himself as 'Zidane', took a bite out of another pickle, and answered full mouthed, "Was hungry".

"Don't your parents give you food?" the stray boy asked worriedly. Zidane scratched his blond head in a confused manner at the question.

"Parents?" he asked.

"You know, a mom and a dad" Marcus pressed. Zidane shook his head, not quite understanding, and noticing Cinna sniffing a gysahl pickle, offered him some.

"I think he doesn't have any parents either" the stray boy said to Marcus.

"Really?" Marcus turned his attention to Zidane again, "are you an ophane like us?" Zidane tilted his head to the side and waited until the stray boy said "thats a kid who has no parents", for an explaination.

Zidane nodded his head to answer them, and devoured another pickle.

The stray boy felt someone dragging him away, and a gruff "C'mon" helped him indentified that someone as Marcus. He stopped dragging the other boy after a few feet, and began fidgiting with the belt on his shoulder.

"We found him" Marcus stated, "but now what do we do?"

"I don't know, he doesn't seem too lonely"

"Should we find his home?"

"I think he should come home with us"

"But what about the Boss? What will he say?"

"He took me in, and Cinna, he could take Zidane"

Marcus kicked at the dust as he contemplated the outcome of the stray boy's suggestion. True, the Boss had 'adopted' all three of the boys willingly enough, two of them on the same day. But that didn't mean he wanted _another_ one running about. The idea seemed all too dangerous to Marcus, and he couldn't remember why he even bothered to descuss it with the stray boy. But then again, he supposed it couldn't hurt to ask...

"Hey Zidane!" Marcus called over to the new ophane, who was engrossed into his own conversation with Cinna, "wanna come and meet someone?"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"What?" Baku asked suspiciously.

Marcus and the stray boy mumbled continuessly, trying to think of a good approach to consult Baku about Zidane. The monkey tailed boy was busy digging a hole with his new toy (the crowbar), outside Baku's house. Cinna watched their adoptive father cautiously, ready to bolt, should the large man become angry with them for bringing home another child off the street.

"We said uh... um... said we f-found a-ah... erm..." Marcus stuttered, scratching the back of his head.

"Found another kid and... er..." the stray boy tried to help Marcus out, but ended up choking on his words just the same.

"And?" Baku questioned. He had a feeling he knew where this was going, and that wasn't where he wanted it to end up. "Anything you wanna tell me about him?"

Marcus sighed a defeated sigh. "We want him to be our brother too" he said finally, causing the stray boy to shift uncomfortably. Baku slapped a hand over his eyes. He knew it the minute he layed eyes on the boy, trotting along with the other three. 

"So what makes you think I'm gonna take him aswell? Eh?" Baku asked, using his height over the children to say 'You got some nerve'.

"But he doesn't have a home!" the stray boy argued, Marcus following up with "And he has to find food all by himself!"

"And he looks healthier than both of you, so I'd guess he's doin' just fine already" Baku pointed out.

"Only 'cos he stole from three different shops!" Marcus exploded. Baku took interest in that statement. He glanced over to Zidane, now sitting against the wall and examining the bend of the crowbar.

"Is that where his jimmy stick came from?" Baku asked the boys. They nodded slowly and cautiously, wearing identical expressions of 'Oh no, we said too much'.

Baku sighed inwardly, looking over all four boys one after another. Truthfully, the out of work actor had been contemplating changing from a life of performing to one of thieving. He didn't really want to of course, but it was looking to be the only choice he had. And small hands are less noticable he reflected, and the younger the pupil, the better skilled the thief later on. Baku was a fairly reasonable to good fighter himself, so he assumed it would be wise to educate the boys in that field so they could defend themselves if they were to ever be caught.

Baku shook his head came up with an alternative. He'd resort to thieving later, but for now he'd use the boys in performing. Once again, the younger the pupil, the better the end result. It also occured to him that young performers were indeed appealing when very skilled.

"I s'pose it couldn't hurt, and I could make some use out of the four of you together" Baku anounced finally, and the pleading faces of Marcus and the stray boy disapeared, replaced by ones of joy and relief.

Baku smiled an amused smile at the children. "Well as long as he puts in, it's fine. I don't need any other trouble"

The boys nodded obediantly, and would probably had bowed down if the large man had requested it.

"Well I mean you kids are all pretty easy to take care of so I'm sure if he hangs with you lot he'll come 'round too, I'm sure he not capable of burning the house down and what the hell is he doing with my wallet?". The two boys looked around at the place Zidane before sat, only to find he was no longer there and instead was perched above the door, leisurely going through the contents of Baku's purse.

Baku patted his sides just to convince himself that it was indeed his wallet the monkey tailed boy possessed, and once he confirmed it, all four boys jumped when he burst into a loud round of full blown laughter.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The stray boy looked outside at the rain. Well, it wasn't really the rain his psychic gaze followed as he sat by the window, but the three figures dancing around in it, roughly all the same height as he. Marcus, Cinna and Zidane weren't used to soft, thick rain like this, and were enjoying the current occurence of it. He sighed as he 'felt' them play. He was allowed to go and play in the sun, but he was still learning to sense his surroundings, and it was too early in the peace for him to find his way in the confusioin of the falling liquid.

"Feelin' a little blue eh?" Baku's voice pulled the stray boy out of his contemplation. He turned to show he had acknowledged his adoptive father's presence, and rubbed the edge of his leather eye band.

"You'll learn ta get around soon enough. Don't worry too much, yer' doin' great" Baku said as he held out a peice of candy. Proof of the boy's success to feel out the world

with his mind revealed itself as he reached out and took the offered sweet from Baku's large palm.

Baku ruffle his hair and made to leave the room. The stray boy returned his attention to the scene outside and sighed. Yes, he'd eventually be able to do the same, but not knowing how long it would take wasn't any fun.

"Hey, kid" Baku's voice intruded into his thoughts once again. The boy turned fully to show he'd be happy to forget his current predicament and listen to the large man instead.

"I think I've got a name for ya" Baku anounced. The boy's usual blank expression brightened slightly, and he slid off his chair and approached Baku.

"W-what is it?" he asked quietly.

"Blank".

Next Chapter - Blank History

~Queen Qeeko


	2. Blank History

Disclaimer: 

Okay, this sucks like hell.

Final Fantasy IX belongs to SquareSoft and not to me.

I make no money from this fanfic; I'm just a miserable excuse for a living existence who gets creative using Square's FF characters.

So this time it's about Blank, who doesn't belong to me either.

Author's note: I had written many chapters to tell the story of the Blank's childhood, but I noticed that they were all very short, so I threw them all into the one page. So this chapter is like his whole kiddy life in mini chapters rolled into one! Read on!

By QueenQeeko.

**The Blank Impression.**

Chapter 2 - Blank History.

Blank sat bolt upright in bed the second the desperate shout entered into his dreamless sleep. The boys' bedroom was very dark, it must have been still nighttime. He leapt out of his warm covers and made way over to Zidane's bed, the lower one of the only set of the bunk beds. Marcus was already there, holding the monkey-tailed boy and trying to calm him down. Marcus' hammock still swung from his quick trip across the room. Cinna leaned over from his top bunk, peering down at the other boys, equally concerned about their brother.  

"It's okay Zidane, it's okay, only a nightmare, you're still with us at home" Marcus whispered, a little too urgently to comfort the trembling Zidane. 

"I hope that didn't wake the Boss" Cinna said, casting a worried look over to the bedroom door. Blank and Marcus exchanged a look of hope that Baku would sleep right through to morning. Blank sat down with Marcus and tried to help calm the distraught boy. In the three years the boys had all lived together, they'd all gotten used to Zidane's nightmares. Sometimes it would be a long time between occurrences, at other times he'd have one nearly every week. Blank had been the first to notice it, a little before Cinna's fourth birthday, and that was as good as two years ago. Now Marcus' eighth was coming the next month. He with Blank at seven, and Zidane and Cinna both at six, they caused some of the worse trouble in all of Lindblum. They were just lucky that few people recognized the four boys as they varied their play tactics. The Business D's Synth shop keeper was one of the few who knew who the boys were, but was too afraid of Baku going through with one of his threats to cause any harm to the boys.

And now they were all together in the middle of the night, all sleep forgotten in their brother's (and not for the last) time of need. Zidane had calmed down considerately, and now sat with his head on Marcus's shoulder, grasping Blank's hand as if for dear life, and his tail wrapped around his own leg defensively.

A loud thump from the next room made all four boys jump. Blank thought it sounded like someone dumping a huge bag of sand on the floor, and in spite of himself chuckled when he heard Baku grumble sleepily, then the creak of a bed under Baku's weight as he climbed back into bed. A minor interruption to the night's tranquil silence. Zidane sighed heavily and sat up straight, his brothers asking if he was all right. 

"Yeah, yeah I'm okay now, just got a fright from that dream, that's all" he muttered, then offered an embarrassed "Thanks" to the others. He climbed back under his own blankets. 

"You don't want tell us about it?" Blank asked him gently, receiving a "Nah, I'm fine," from Zidane as he buried his face into his pillow. Marcus ruffled the monkey-tailed boy's hair before returning to his hammock, and Cinna withdrew his head from over the bunk edge and resumed slumber underneath the covers. Blank stayed where he sat for a minute longer, and pushed his long reddish hair behind his shoulders. Hearing the regular breathing of the other three boys, Blank decided to go back to sleep. He slipped back under his blanket on his low-to-the-floor bed, and sighed as he watched Zidane.  

It remained silent for the rest of the night. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Marcus poked his head outside the kitchen door and peered into the small courtyard of the house. In the dim morning light, he could easily make out Blank, sword raised and sweating slightly as he prepared another strike. Marcus shook his head. The upright log Blank had been practicing on was beginning to resemble an apple core. Blank held the sword in both of his hands, the blade's twin still in its leather sheath by the outside wall. 

The seven-year-old had left the harness with the sheaths and discarded his blue sleeveless shirt, leaving him bare backed in the cool morning air. The cool temperature unfortunately failed to help. Blank's loose fitting black pants stuck to his mismatched skin from perspiration and his leather sandals were beginning to feel slippery and uncomfortable. His eye patch was also missing, and his hair had been back up into a ponytail. Blank was looking stronger by the month, but it still wasn't enough. The sword was still just that little bit too heavy and too big the hold in one hand, and even if he were getting better with the log, he'd be hopeless in a fight. He needed someone to practice with, and he needed to get faster with his blade.

"Hey". 

Blank nearly flipped backwards when Marcus' voice shot through his thoughts. Marcus stood there, leaning against the kitchen doorframe, arms crossed and looking... worried? He still had his nightshirt on, but with his day trousers and leather shoes.

"Yeah hi" Blank answered, letting the tip of the blade rest on the ground and wiping the sweat off his brow with the back of his hand. 

"Getting better?" Marcus asked. Blank frowned. He couldn't remember for the life of him if Marcus had ever been nice to him before. They never really hit off as friends from the start, and made the best squabbling brothers around. Marcus spent most of his spare time picking at Blank, calling him things like 'stitch-face' and hiding his eye patch so Blank couldn't go out. And now he stood here, genuinely concerned. 

"A bit" Blank said, still breathing hard, "Why?"

"Just wondering" Marcus replied, then slipped back inside the house. Blank suddenly lost all interest in training any longer this morning. He sheathed his sword again and sat against the house wall. He could hear Marcus talking to Baku inside. 

"How did you sleep?" Blank heard Marcus ask.

"Oh, yeah fine" Baku's voice grumbled, "But I think I fell outta bed sometime last night".

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

_~3 weeks later ~_

"Hey look!" Marcus exclaimed, pointing to the poster on the Theatre District's clock wall, "They moved the Festival of the Hunt forward to tomorrow! That's the day before my birthday!"

Zidane rearranged his green scarf. As per usual, Zidane, being the shortest one, had donned a pair of leather boots too big for him in an attempt to make himself look taller. His gray trousers looked a tad too big as well, covering up the mouth of his boots and using a large belt to hold them up. He had no shirt, but had wrapped straps of fabric around his wrists and forearms.

Marcus had his white long sleeve shirt to add to his outfit, and a long length red bandana around his forehead.

Blank had chosen his average get-around-gear today, with added gray gloves. He decided not to wear the eye patch today, and instead had a black scarf tied around his eyes.

Cinna looked very odd, as he had selected an entire get-up of leather clothing. A soft leather shirt, cowhide pants, brown leather shoes and a Mu skin hat. 

"It's your birthday in two days? How old are you?" Zidane joked. Marcus pretended to look hurt.

"Aw Zidane! How could you?" he asked the monkey tailed boy.

"Yeah Zidane," Blank joined in, dropping a hand on the boy's shoulder, "How could you forget? Marcus has only been going on about it for the last week's time". Even Marcus was able to laugh at the comment. 

"Hey, I heard that the Boss was gonna have a go at the Hunt too," Cinna piped up, studying the poster.

"Really? That means we got the day to ourselves tomorrow!" Marcus announced. The Festival of the Hunt seemed to be more and more popular every year, and by now the boys had gotten used to the routine everyone followed on the day. The Festival of the Hunt generally took two hours to prepare all the beasts in the three respective Districts, and since it was such a huge occasion people often filled the guarded streets and protected walkways long before it started at the hour before midday. Nearly every shop would be barricaded shut to prevent damage to goods, and then the markets would be temporarily abandoned during the time the beasts were loose in the city. 

And since this all took place hours before anything was set loose, fortified shops weren't entirely safe…

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

_~The next day. ~_

Early morning hours weren't Baku's favorite time of day, but he'd persevere. Baku straightened his belt and scabbard. It was definitely time he did do something a bit more active, and earning a few gil in the process didn't seem like a bad idea either. He was also sure that the boys would be capable of keeping out of trouble for the day. Or at least he hoped so. 

"Alright you lot," Baku said as he exited his bedroom, fully fitted for battle, "You be sure to cheer yer Boss on, and don't go causin' no mishaps today, okay?"

"Gotcha Boss!" the four boys answered, saluting in synch with their adoptive father.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"C'mon! Hurry up or someone will notice us!" Blank hissed to his brothers across the street, hiding behind some sizable barrels. One by one the boys snuck across, diving behind some half broken crates as three nobles and a group of shopkeepers passed by. 

"That was too close, I knew that was too early to move," Zidane frowned at Blank.

"Oh, you moved on time, but you were too slow gettin' across," Blank shot back. Marcus then sneaked a look from out behind their shelter from view. 

"Okay everyone, almost the whole city is off waiting for the Festival to start. Crow bars ready?" Marcus asked the group.

"Yeah!" said the other boys.

"Swag sacks?"

"Yeah!"

"Commence thieving!"

Marcus began to jimmy open the shop's side window, thanking the Great Good Lord (if there was one) that the Business District was one of the first to be cleared. Eventually the frame's lock gave away from inside, and the window budged open. Zidane had a lot of trouble getting through the window, and Blank put a hand under Zidane's boot to help him.

"Why am I always helping you?" he muttered. Once inside, they turned around and gaped at the store's contents.

Weapons. Shiny, heavy, decorated, heavenly weapons. Zidane went straight to a wall covered with short swords and daggers, while Cinna browsed around clubs and spears. Marcus engrossed his attention into long swords and broad swords and two-handed swords. It was a haven to the three boys. Zidane picked out a pair of daggers, two different kinds, and hooked their sheaths onto his belt.

"Hey! This must be the hammer the guy uses to forge the weapons," Cinna said, holding the object aloft for all to see.

"So what are you gonna do with it?" Marcus inquired, taking an iron sword off a shelf.

"Swipe it of course!" Cinna announced, thrusting the hammer's handle into his belt, then went on helping himself to other items of interest. Blank on the other hand, found himself a pocketknife and was satisfied with it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Only an hour to go. 

Streets were filled to the limits they could withstand and the arrival of this year's beast challenge was praised. The hulking cage was wheeled in underneath one such walkway for the spectators, and all waited short of patiently for the Festival to begin.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Yet another silent street in the city of Lindblum, and Baku's boys made full use of it. By the time they'd worked their way to the Industrial District, they were significantly weighed down with their new possessions. Not every shop was hit, and nearly every store that had been was left without a single trace of their presence. That is, if one ignored the obvious absence of some valuable items.

"Hey Zidane, where did you get that watch? You didn't have it before," Cinna stated aloud to the monkey-tailed boy, who was examining said watch in one hand, his other arm clutching his load. 

"Oh gee, Cinna, maybe the same place he got all his other stuff," Blank laughed, much to the younger boy's embarrassment.

"Shut up! So I didn't see him pocket it, shoot me," Cinna snapped. 

"Well, I think we should probably head back now," Marcus suggested, looking up at the sky, "It's gotta be close to midday, so we'd better get outta here before the monsters are on us".

"Relax, we got a whole hour to go before it starts!" Zidane reassured, holding up his watch.

"Hey Zidane, give us a look," Cinna requested, leaping on the other boy and knocking him to the ground. Blank and Marcus laughed full heartily as Zidane and Cinna rolled about, scattering their respective objects all around the pavement. Eventually they broke up the minor scuffle, Zidane tucking the watch into his pocket and gathering up his things.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Baku watched as the last of the Fangs was released; it was almost time to begin. With only ten minutes left to wait, Baku strode out with the other Hunters and boarded his Air Car, taking the trip to his designated starting point. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

All four boys froze as the Lindblum castle clock tower started tolling. 

One. 

Two.

Three.

Four.

Five.

Six.

Seven.

Eight.

Nine.

Ten.

Eleven.

……………!!! 

…Only eleven tolls! The Festival was starting! 

"Zidane, did you read that watch right?!" Blank cried, spinning around on his brother.

"Yeah! I know how to read a clock!" Zidane defended.

"Well check it again!" Marcus shouted, seeing a dozen Mus round the corner. Zidane wrenched out the watch to try and confirm any mistake on the time, his face paling as he looked upon the machine's bronze face.

"Oh crap!" he shouted, "the watch has been smashed; it must have broken when Cinna tackled me!"

The Mus began to close in on the boys, forming a full circle to prevent any escape. Overhead a large number of birds few by, too quick for the children to identify them. An extreme case of panic started to settle in over the boys, having never been surrounded by so many enemies before.

"I thought a Mu would only attack if something else attacked it first!" Cinna squeaked.

Marcus dropped his sack to the ground, "It doesn't matter now".

The other boys released their bags as well, pulling out their weapons and getting ready to fight their way out. The first attack didn't come from one of the Mus, nor did it come from the boys. A huge Fang crashed into the District, then charged at the group of children and beasts alike. Immediately another six Fangs came up behind it, causing half the Mus to flee. Marcus began by swinging his sword out at one of the remaining Mus as the other boys defended themselves from the other blue and brown creatures. 

"SCATTER!!!" he shouted, and the boys all took off in different directions, darting around the beasts and eventually making their way towards another District. They continued their flight from the battling beasts just as a Hunter jumped down from above and swung a club at the three Fangs that were following the boys. 

"What do you kids think you're doing?! Get the hell out of here NOW!" he ordered just as a Mu leapt on him from an alley to the left. The boys struck out at any monsters that blocked their way, making their escape much slower.

"Dammit! It's all because of this stupid watch!" Zidane yelled, throwing the unlucky object at bird monster that tried to swoop on him. 

More Hunters appeared in the District, exchanging blows with the beasts running over the city. The boys stared around them in utter bewilderment, throwing the odd attack out at a monster that came too close. More Fangs began to fill the streets by the minute, and Blank started to wonder why so many had gathered in this District alone. The Hunt was turning into a massive brawl in the city and the boys were stuck in the middle of it.

After efficiently removing the front limb of a Mu with a double handed swing of his sword, Blank found himself bowed over from the left by Marcus as a pack of beasts fled through the District. Zidane had discarded his shoes in order to gain better balance to defend himself, hurling the now useless gear at swooping aerial monsters. He leapt to the side as Marcus shouted something about a mad dash of Fangs, landing in a heap by a shattered barrel. The Hunters and present beasts were almost trampling Cinna already. 

In an insane act of speed unusual to the cumbersome boy, Cinna sprang off the pavement and onto the back of a Fang running through the District with the other beasts of its kind. Marcus looked up in alarm as he caught sight of Cinna being carted away by the brown creature, but immediately forgot it as he jumped to he feet and scurried into a side alley as some of the stampeding fiends turned towards him and the boy he held. He left his sword behind. Grasping Blank's hand as tightly as he could, Marcus ran among the trashcans and cardboard boxes carelessly flung into the passage. 

Blank had no idea what was going on as he was dragged along. All of his remaining senses were on an overload of confusion as he continued behind Marcus on this desperate path, with the beasts closing in. He could hear panting, screaming, yelling, growls, weapons clanging, racket that overwhelmed him as dizziness swamped him. Feeling the breath of Fang against his shoulder Blank struck out blindly with his sword in one hand. He successfully put a gash into the monster's nose, causing it to back off slightly. Their escape led them to the Air Car station where they first ever met with Zidane years ago. As they approached the familiar wall Marcus swung Blank around and up at the tree's trunk.

"Climb!" he shouted frantically, following as the blind boy shot up in appropriate haste. Once high among the branches, Blank returned his sword to its sheath next to its twin, which by sheer miracle he hadn't lost to the battle. The infuriated monsters snarled at the boys, circling and clawing at the base of the tree. Marcus peered down at the Fangs, hoping against hope that the persistent beasts would give up.

His wish was not granted.

One Fang sat down by the tree's roots protruding from the ground as another slowly climbed upon its back, bringing itself up onto its hind legs. Digging its claws into the tree's wooden skin, it edged its way up the trunk, before quickly picking up the pace of its ascent. The higher the beasts reached up the tree the faster they became, a feeling of dread washing over the two cowering occupants not far above them. Marcus glanced around wildly in his panic, gaze falling on the crack in the Air Car station wall. The hole was still big enough to allow them in, leaving the beasts outside. Marcus snatched Blank's wrist again and threw himself into the wall, just as a Fang came up and swiped a large paw at their retreating forms. The Fang lashed out again at them as they dropped down in the cavity in the wall, catching at Blank's right upper arm and tearing the flesh. Blood sprayed against the interior of the dusty passage.

Poor Blank cried out as the cruel claws passed though his arm, landing next to Marcus and grabbing at the wound in an attempt to stop the pain. Tears streamed down his face as the torture spread through his whole limb, but he gnashed his teeth to prevent any sound from coming out. Marcus cast his eyes above him, his head going cold at the sight of several Fangs clawing and swiping madly in the dank air, trying to gain access to the boys bellow. Eventually they backed away from the opening of the wall, but Marcus could still hear them grunting and sniffing around the top of the tree.

When the last Fang withdrew its paw, Marcus let out the breath he was holding, turning his attention to the other boy next to him. He immediately jumped up upon seeing the blood making its way down Blank's arm. Marcus noticed with some dismay (or maybe it was horror) that the other boy was beginning to look rather pale. The older boy began ripping off his white sleeves in order to bandage up Blank's wounds, at least try and stop the bleeding.

The contact of fabric to raw flesh caused Blank to recoil away from Marcus' makeshift bandages. Marcus knew the pain must have been excruciating, but if he didn't bind the wound, the blood lost would be fatal. So with no other choice, Marcus wrestled Blank to the ground, ultimately pinning the other boy down with his elbow and knees, and thus began to swathe the arm with the detached cotton sleeves.

Blank cringed, unable to fight off the stronger boy in his damaged state. He buried his face away into the compacted dirt floor and swallowed back a scream of pain. Marcus tried to ignore the shaking in Blank's shoulders, and continued to wrap the arm securely, making sure to bind it tightly but without cutting off the circulation altogether. Marcus finally released Blank and sat up, watching as Blank curled slightly into a ball on his side, clutching the bound wound with his left hand. The stinging had subsided now due to lack of air to an opened wound, but instead throbbed as a painful reminder of the injury.

A depressed silence settled in on the scene, and the two boys moved to the opposite walls from each other, waiting for their antagonists above to leave them be.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Zidane sneaked another look.

He wished he hadn't. 

The six-year-old tightened his grip and squeezed his eyes shut. Hanging by all four limbs from some solitary clothesline in-between the high windows of two opposite facing buildings, Zidane wondered what had become of his brothers by now. The eight Fangs below him snapped and snarled, refusing to give the monkey-tailed boy a chance to forget his current predicament. 

Zidane sighed, reopening his eyes. He couldn't help but feel partially responsible for this whole mess, and was also feeling both guilty and lucky that he had found this particular place of safety when he did.

Marcus had shouted about Fangs, and Zidane had thrown himself out-of-the-way to safety. As soon as he had landed among the broken pieces of the destroyed barrel, Zidane had curled into a defensive ball, covering his head as Mus ran and leapt over him, fleeing the stampeding Fangs Marcus had just warned him about. When the monkey-tailed boy finally lifted his head he had sprung up in alarm when he saw a huge purplish beast smash into a group of Hunters. The beast tossed its head, flinging hapless monsters aside to clear its path. 

Not wanting to suffer a similar fate as the ruined Hunters and creatures cast across the pavement, Zidane had took off down an alley between two stores, hoping his departure had gone unnoticed. An angered roar shattered his hopes, and rapidly the beast came up behind him. The horrible monster butted its enormous head forward, and Zidane was flung into the air.

Zidane's decent ended shortly as he caught with both hands a washing line just as he was passing under it. Built up inertia caused the monkey-tailed boy to spin round the cord in a random arc, before eventually coming to a bouncing halt. The beast bellowed in rage at it's own mistake, for it could not reach the tailed humanoid it wished to feast upon. So with a frustrated stomp of its feet, the beast continued on through the District in search of other creatures.   

Zidane heaved a sigh of relief, but then another sigh of exasperation when the pack of Fangs appeared and decided to 'make camp' below him. He had brought his legs up around the thin rope line as well, taking some weight off his arms. 

The monkey-tailed boy had hung there for three hours already, and by now he was growing weary. But he dared not let go, and remained clinging to the cord for his life depended on it. Zidane looked around, listening to the chaos of the Festival (Slaughter more like it) of the Hunt all around in the background. He gathered that the two opposite windows on the ends on this clothesline were locked, so it wouldn't be that easy to escape his aerial refuge. 

With nothing to do and nowhere to go, Zidane wondered how his brothers had faired.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  

"Whaddya mean 'the monsters are outta control?!'" Baku shouted at one of the Lindblum castle soldiers.

Soldiers and Hunters alike were still trying to eliminate the uncontrolled beasts that covered the city. For hours now, as soon as the soldiers were dispatched throughout the Districts, skirmishing and hostility was on a large scale. The monster numbers were too great this year for the Hunters alone, causing extreme anxiety among the citizens.

"Exactly that, Hunter Baku, the monsters are out of control," the soldier replied, cleaning the blood off his spear. 

"Well how come we can't get 'em under control?!"

"We are working on that".

Baku grabbed at his pointy ears and stomped around in a frustrated circle, earning a raised eyebrow from the soldier.

"Isn't there _anything_ that could speed up that process?!" Baku lashed out again, "I got four of me kids out there!"

"I understand your concern for your children, but we are doing all we can. Until we have successfully eradicated all of the monsters in the city we cannot afford time to search for missing persons," the soldier reasoned tiredly, "some of my own family are out there too, but I have to wait until there are no more beasts left. If any go unaccounted for, they could do more damage later".

There was really no way Baku could argue with that. The soldier was totally right. Even if Baku did find the boys, the time he used to locate them could be better used to prevent any other casualties.

"Let's get back to it," the soldier said, and placing his spear over his shoulder, he made his way back down the castle stairs to the city.

Baku sighed and drew his sword. He hoped those kids were okay.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  

Marcus slipped a little as he tried to get up the inner walls of the Air Car station wall. With both feet and hands pressed firmly against the walls he edged his way up, slowly, carefully, until he was high enough to peer out through the wall's large crack. The gradually changing color of the sky was the only thing Marcus could acknowledge before letting himself drop back to the ground, narrowly avoiding the claws that struck out into the wall the minute his head appeared. 

"It's gettin' to nighttime, the sky is turning orange," Marcus said to Blank, who was pitifully curled up on the dirt floor. Marcus sighed and picked himself up off the ground, dusting off his trousers and looking back up at the crack. It was apparent that they were going to have to stay in the wall overnight, but at least they were safe from the Fangs. Admittedly, Marcus was scared. He, like any other child his age, was well and truly terrified from what had happened this year with the Festival. However, he also knew they had to be brave to get through it. 

"Hey, Marcus".

Upon hearing Blank call his name, Marcus turned around to face the other boy. Blank had changed position. He now sat slumped against the wall, hand sitting loosely around his bandaged wound. 

"I never said thanks… for fixing up my arm…" Blank said quietly.

"Yeah, you're welcome," Marcus replied, sitting down next to his 'brother'. "I hope you're okay with sleeping in here. We can't get out right now". Both boys let out a miserable sigh. It was going to be a long night.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  

Zidane was bored. He hated being bored. He hated doing nothing. He hated running and hiding from anything. And he especially hated hanging _here!_

"AAAAAAAARRRGGHHH!!! WON'T YOU JERKS DOWN THERE JUST GET LOST?!!" he shouted furiously, kicking his legs about as the fur on his tail stood up. Zidane had finally had enough, and was openly voicing his irritation to all that could hear him. The resting Fangs below snorted at the monkey-tailed boy's demand, and would pay him no heed until he would decide to simply give up. 

"NNNRRGH!!! THIS IS GETTING SOOOOOO ANNOYING!!!" Zidane screamed, thrashing about. He stopped immediately when he heard a loud twang. One Fang fell to the cobblestone ground with a crossbow bolt protruding from the center of its forehead. A second later, and a barrage of deadly arrows, bolts and darts showered upon the whole group of Fangs. Either the darkness was making it somewhat difficult to aim, or the ones firing the metal darts were hopeless shots. 

"Hii! Hey!! WAHH!!!" the monkey-tailed boy bounced and swung on the cord, narrowly avoiding random flying missiles. A full minute of this bombardment of shooting projectiles disturbed the early evening peace, before ending abruptly with a shout of "YYEEOOWW!!! You shot me in the foot you idiot!!!"  

Zidane, who was scared to look down, did just that. His stomach threatened to bring up his late morning meal of yellow apples (had it really been_ that _long since he'd eaten??), as he looked down at the pile of bleeding Fangs, dead beyond any doubt. Crossbow bolts, and arrows of all sorts, stuck out in all directions from the twitching bodies of the unfortunate creatures. Blood was thick and flowing from wounds, making a rapidly growing pool of the crimson liquid. The metallicky-bloody stench was repulsive.

"Zidane?!" came a desperate and familiar voice from the direction the attack had come from. Zidane's head whipped around toward the darker end of the alleyway. 

"Boss?!" he exclaimed, trying to see through the darkness. Baku came running into view towards the massacre below Zidane; revealed by what little moonlight there was. Behind him came a group of Hunters and castle soldiers, one of which was hopping on one foot rather than walking.

"Zidane! Are you okay?!" Baku shouted up at the boy suspended above the bleeding mound of fiends. He stopped at the edge of the blood pool.

"No, I'm NOT okay! You guys almost SHOT me!" the infuriated boy bellowed at the man, "NOW GET ME DDDOOOOOOOWWNNN!!!"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  

It was barely dawn when Blank woke up where he was stretched out on the dirt floor of the wall's interior. He sat up and removing the black scarf, rubbed the sleep out of his 'undamaged' eye. He noticed after a minute that Marcus wasn't near him. The other boy sat dejected under the main crack of the wall. Blank moved over to him, asking what was wrong. 

"What _isn't_ wrong?" Marcus griped, bringing his knees up to his chin, "What a rotten way to spend the morning". Blank listened without interrupting the other boy as Marcus complained about everything that was amiss with the last twenty-four hours. The bronze watch leaving them without correct time, being separated from their brothers, chased and trapped in the wall and overnight too. Blank put a hand on Marcus' shoulder, but the troubled boy shrugged it off. Blank didn't attempt anything else, and sat quietly against the inner wall. 

He thought about what had happened too. The last day's time had certainly been stressful. He thought of how panicked they'd felt when they realized the monsters were being set loose, and how Marcus had grabbed his hand when they had to flee the group of Fangs. Blank's lack of vision would have cost him dearly if Marcus hadn't helped him, and it was now that the blind boy realized how Marcus had been doing nothing _but_ helping him. He had made totally sure that Blank was out of the way of the Fangs since all the noise was confusing him, and when Blank had been injured, Marcus tore off his sleeves to slow and stop the blood loss. This was very unlike Marcus, as he normally picked fights with Blank. He thought back to two days before, when all four brothers were reading the poster. They were happy, and would have been even happier today if the monsters hadn't outnumbered the Hunters.

_'Why would we have been happier today?' _Blank asked himself suddenly. Was there something special about today? If there was, Blank had forgotten about it since he had been preoccupied with evading monsters. Was missing out on something today what was making Marcus so sour?

Realization hit Blank like colliding Air Cars. 

Marcus' face held a puzzled expression as he watched the younger boy begin wrenching his sword harness off his shoulders and over his head. Laying the equipment out in front of him, Blank started to detach one of the two swords. He always used the one that sat against his right shoulder, and the other was basically box fresh. He removed this sword, scabbard and all, and held it out in front of the bewildered Marcus. 

"Wha?" the older boy said, looking back and forth between Blank and the sheathed sword. 

"Here, this is for you," Blank said simply.

"Huh?" 

"Go on, take it, its yours".

"Wha?" Marcus managed again as Blank dropped it into his uncertain hands. 

"Its your birthday present, from me," Blank said, replacing the black scarf around his eyes. Marcus looked down at the sword, drawing it out of the scabbard a short way to examine the blade. The metal was clean and unused, and the handle still gleamed with its last round of polish. Marcus turned to Blank who was waiting for a reaction. 

"You've never let _anyone_ go near these, 'sides the Boss," Marcus stated quietly. Blank merely shrugged and kicked the dust up with the heel of his shoe. 

"You deserve it," said Blank, turning to the boy whose face he'd never seen, "you aren't so bad, and I've never had that much against you". Marcus smiled at Blank, forgetting any quarrels they'd had since they had first met. He gently placed a hand on Blank's shoulder.

"Thanks Bro".

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  

The early morning clouds lingered darkly as late morning arrived. A breeze was blowing the flowers from the blossoming trees around the District, bringing with them a delightful scent as well as a coincidental destructive uproar. A rolling carriage fortified with iron plates and bars smashed against the tree housing the Fangs, knocking them out of it and onto the ground. A large group Hunters pounced on the pack, and castle soldiers shot the remaining fiends with arrows. Cleanly done, and soon Zidane was climbing up the now crooked tree to peer inside the wall.

"Hullo? Marcus? Blank? You guys in here?" he called, looking all about inside the wall. He never thought to look down and was startled by the sudden shout of "Zidane! What the hell's going on out there?!" Marcus and Blank got to their feet, and edged their way up and out of their temporary prison. The two boys had hardly touched the grassy ground when they were swept up into a suffocating hug from Baku.

"Are you two alright?!" he demanded desperately, noticing the bloodied bandages around Blank's arm. He tried to ask them how long they'd been in there, but was cut short from inquiring about anything when a yelp went up from the team of Hunters and soldiers. Baku and his boys turned around to find most of the group jumping haphazardly out of the way of a high-speed group of Fangs running through the area. Immediately they drew their assorted weapons and were upon the monsters, making sure no creatures survived. One Hunter leapt back as a Fang charged at him, knocking over a barrel standing by a closed food stall. 

As the barrel began to roll away, Blank, Marcus and Zidane all demonstrated an anxious look of shock as it emitted a surprised and muffled "AAH!! HELP!!!" The boys recognized the voice instantly.

"That's Cinna!" shouted Blank, racing towards the runaway urn. The barrel made its random route down the paved hill of the streets, bouncing off various things with countless shouts of "OW!" and "DAMMIT!"

"We gotta do something, _fast!_" Zidane cried, kicking over another arbitrary barrel as he ran. He jumped up onto this new (and already moving) vehicle and rolled it quickly after the other one, gaining speed and proximity to the swift container. Nearing the runaway barrel Zidane leapt upon it, but realized too late he had no idea how to stop it. 

"OH CRAP!!!" he yelled, barely keeping up with the tempo of the rotating wood beneath his feet. Marcus cursed a far worse word and pulled his birthday sword out of its scabbard. With as much force as he could muster into the throw, Marcus hurled the weapon way out into the air, where it fell quickly, landed and embedded itself four inches into the pavement. The barrel smashed into the flat of the blade, throwing Zidane off towards the heavens, as the wooden container broke open. Using the time it took for Zidane to return to Gaia, Blank sped down past Marcus' sword and under the falling six-year-old. Blank was knocked down as he caught Zidane, where upon they both tumbled across the cobblestone street. 

Never had Blank ever felt so sore and dizzy in his life. He head swam as he and Zidane picked themselves up off the ground and eventually making their unsteady way back up to Marcus. The eldest boy was kneeling over the sprawled Cinna, trying to get any kind of response out of their brother. Cinna wasn't seeing stars, but something very similar as he felt the world spinning around him. 

"Oooowww… wha? Where am I now?" Cinna groaned as he stared straight up. The four boys ultimately sat in a circle, not caring about anything except being all together again.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  

Baku smiled as he peered down the hill at four boys sitting together in the street. 

"Gwahahaha! I sure am glad they're alright!" he laughed, and sat down right where he was. Baku was totally unaware that someone very important had just entered the area. Regent Cid Fabool slowly walked through the crowd, calling out the names of particular Hunters and soldiers.

"Hunter Baku?" 

Baku turned around and felt his breath catch in his throat as the Regent of Lindblum strolled up to him. 

"I would like to speak with you," the Regent said. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  

"Hey, Marcus," Zidane said finally, breaking the weary silence, "happy birthday… as happy as it can be… or try to make the rest of it better…" Marcus blinked at the odd well wishing, and then burst into laughter as he thought of how awful it had started out. Blank smiled softly as he listened to the other boys talk about reviving some fun for the day. He was glad things had worked out in the end, and was very joyful himself, for he had gained a_ real_ brother out of Marcus.

**~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  **

_~2 years later.~_

Blank woke up with a start as he felt someone shaking him. The morning sun was very bright as he sat up, glancing around to a very anxious looking Marcus. The ten-year-old was currently bare-chested, but was otherwise dressed in the same outfit he had been wearing for years, only a larger version. Blank immediately jumped out of bed, asking, "What's the matter, Marcus?"

"Zidane's gone, Bro," came the answer. Blank thought he'd misheard him.

"_What?_" he breathed. 

"I mean we can't find him anywhere. No one's seen him since last night after the performance," Marcus told him. Blank rubbed his temples and thought for a minute. Yes, the last time he himself saw Zidane was as they were putting their costumes back into the wardrobes. The monkey-tailed boy had waved a lazy goodnight to the others as he went to sit on the roof as he sometimes did after a play. And that was the last he'd seen of him.

"When did you start looking for him?" he asked his fanged brother, tying up his hair. It was getting rather long now. Marcus explained that he himself had been up earlier than usual, finding Zidane's bed empty and un-slept in. He'd searched the house, then the Theatre District while everyone slept, and returned home immensely concerned.

"I've told the Boss, and Cinna is out looking around the Industrial District," he told Blank, sighing exhaustedly. Blank sighed too as he reached for his eye patch. He too kept a common style of dress, but with a gray shirt instead of the blue one he had worn for the last two years. He had also replaced his sandals with a darker pair of boots, right sized for a nine-year-old.

"It's gonna be just like when we first met him," he mumbled, grabbing his sword and strapping it to his back.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  

Days passed and there was no word from Zidane. Baku reluctantly gave in to the boys' suggestion of putting up 'missing person' posters, and continued to ask around the streets himself. As Blank pinned another poster up on a wooden pole, he noticed something jumping up and down somewhere to his left. 

"Huh?" Marcus mumbled, looking around to see what had caught Blank's attention. A girl in a short blue dress was intent on leaping as high as she could into the air. Up and down. Up and down. Several times her wide brimmed white hat flew off her head, where after she'd pause momentarily to pick it up again.

"What is she doing?" Blank asked. 

"She's just jumpin' up and down, Bro. I think she's trying to read that notice board in the shop window," Marcus answered him, "it seems that way". Blank thought it strange that she simply didn't find a crate or something similar to stand on. Finally having enough of it, he walked up behind her, grabbed the girl around the waist and lifted her higher off the ground than she could jump.

"Is it easier to see now?" Blank asked the girl. He was completely unprepared for the heel that came swinging back to hit him in a tender place unique to the male species. Immediately he let go of the girl and doubled over, instinctively taking hold of himself in reaction to the attack. 

"Whut the hell do ya think yer doin'?!" she screamed at Blank, beside herself with anger. Marcus was there by Blank's side instantly, asking what she was yelling about. 

"You CREEP!" the girl shrieked, and then tore off down an alleyway. 

"Bro, are you okay?" Marcus asked worriedly. He had been watching from a safe distance the whole time, and thought that the kick looked extremely painful. He glanced up at the flyer (the only thing on the notice board) in the window, wondering what the girl was so interested in.

_Tempura Cats are looking for new actors. _

_Auditions and try-outs welcome at anytime._

_Find us at the Lyton mini hall in the lower section of the Theatre District and have a go._

Marcus frowned. Those 'Temper-Load-Catfish' were always trying to one-up the Boss.

"Ah, I'm f-fine," Blank hissed as he straightened up, maybe a bit too quickly, "Sheez, did she get mad or _what?_"

"I'm not even gonna ask," Marcus muttered.

On the way home, Blank couldn't help but say aloud, "I guess I won't try anything like _that _again".

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  

Weeks passed and no sign of Zidane. Baku and the boys were beginning to lose hope. Nothing like this had ever happened before, and they were starting think that maybe something had happened _to_ him. 

"I wonder where he went," Cinna sighed as he lay on bedroom rug one evening. Marcus shrugged sadly from his hammock, where he lay on his stomach with one arm hanging over the edge. Blank sat upon Zidane's long abandoned bottom bunk, slumped against the wall. Not one of them had had a restful night's sleep since the monkey-tailed boy's disappearance. Blank would sleep fitfully half the night and then often find himself awake, restless and worried for the remainder. He was very weary, but his young mind was filled with too much concern for their brother to let him rest.

"He might never come back…" Marcus mumbled, and with a groan Blank collapsed on his side, squeezing his eyes shut, even though it was a pointless gesture. 

_'Where did you go, Zidane?'_

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  

"Would you slow down, Marcus!" Blank demanded as his larger brother dragged him along though the Business District.

"I thought I saw someone with a tail!" Marcus exclaimed, tightening the hold on his smaller brother's hand.

"Are you sure?" 

"Very sure".

"You've seen _two_ other kid's today with tails: the rat one and the one with big dog-ears. I thought_ I_ was suppose to be the blind one".

"This one has a mop of blond hair". 

Blank delved into his long lost memory of sight. What was blond again? Oh yes, a yellowy hair color. Marcus finally slowed down, dropping Blank's hand and approaching the young humanoid with high hopes. The person had a darker shade of blond hair, but Marcus guessed that it probably just hadn't been washed in a while. 

"Hey, uh, could you, um, could you turn around?" he asked the short stranger, scanning their orange overalls and white T-shirt. Upon turning the face Marcus, the young cat faced girl raised an eyebrow.

"Whaddya want?" she asked. Marcus gulped in embarrassment. Her tail sure looked like a monkey tail. He couldn't see her triangular ears for the mass of hair, not until she shook some hair out of her face and shifted the layers of it. 

"Uh, sorry, I thought you were someone else," he apologized. The girl shrugged and with a small smile walked away.

"You really should make an effort to make sure it's not him _before_ asking," Blank sniggered, "I think she likes you".

"God, I hope not," muttered Marcus. He happened to look over Blank's shoulder as he said this, and dropping a hand on said shoulder he twisted his brother around and announced, "but there's some who definitely does NOT like _you_". Blank felt himself freeze up as he acknowledged the presence of the same girl who had kicked him. As far as he could tell, she was jumping up and down again. 

"Hey, Marcus,  tell me what she's doing. Why are the other two kids swingin' that rope around her?" he asked Marcus.

"Oh no you don't," Marcus warned, "I'm not gonna let you make a idiot out of yourself _again_, Bro…you've never heard of jump-rope?"

"Ah, so that's what she's doin'," Blank said to himself, and began to make his way over to her. Marcus ran up behind him and pulled him back.

"What are you gonna do this time?" he inquired suspiciously, "Pull her hair?"

"Look, all I did was try to help her read that leaflet, and she walloped me. I just wanna say sorry," Blank answered him, shaking off Marcus' hand. 

"Sorry?"

"Well, she didn't give me a chance last time, did she?"

Defeated thus, Marcus silently accompanied Blank over to the girls. Immediately stiffening on noticing the boys' approach, the girl they'd met with before tripped over the rope. 

"Ruby! Are you okay?" one of the other girls asked, letting her end of the jump-rope fall to the ground as she ran over to help her friend up. The girl identified as Ruby kicked the rope away.

"You were doing gweat, just needed thwee more jumps to beat your last score," the other girl said, counting off her fingers, "We need to get better if we wanna go to Alexandwia to play! Momma said she'd take us there!"

"Naw, I don't think I really like jump-rope," Ruby muttered, "I think I act better". She got up and watched the two boys as they stopped and stood in front of her. 

"Hey," said Blank. Marcus gave a small wave.

"Howdy," Ruby replied, "wanna talk or sumthang?"

_'Cuts right to the chase, she does,'_ Blank thought, "Yeah, talkin's good". 

"See y'all later," Ruby said to the other girls, and silently strolled pass Blank and Marcus. Figuring that she wanted them to follow her, they did just that. She didn't lead them far and the three children eventually ended up outside of a small pub in the Business District. Leaning on the urn displaying that day's specials, Ruby turned to the boys and asked "So, whut did ya wanna talk 'bout?" Up close, she seemed to be around seven years old, and was very pretty too.

"Not much really," Blank shrugged, "I just wanted to say sorry for making you mad that time".

"Yeah, I'm sorry too.You know, fer kickin' ya," Ruby said, blushing very slightly, "but you gave me a mighty big surprise". 

"So, your name is Ruby? That sounds kinda nice," Marcus said, trying to make better conversation. Unfortunately, this brought a glare from the girl.

"Whut do you mean, 'kinda', huh?" Ruby questioned, "I think it's just dandy fer a lady like myself".

"Lady? Could've fooled me, what with that brash, outlanderish accent," Blank commented. Marcus had to leap in front of Blank in order to protect him from the full blare of Ruby's renewed rage.

"Is thar sumthang _wrong_ with a different way o' sayin' things?!" she screeched, trying to claw at Blank from over Marcus' broad shoulder.

"Ruby, he didn't mean anything by that, he just sticks his foot in his gob a lot, don't get mad," Marcus reasoned, trying to hold the girl back without angering her further.

"Don't 'get' mad?" Blank repeated sarcastically, "bit late for that". Ruby huffed peevishly and backed off, placing one petite hand on her hip, "Well, I think havin' a lil' accent makes me _unique_!" 

"Oh it _does_, Ruby!" Marcus agreed without entirely meaning it, "Just like your jump-rope skills and… ah…" He stopped short, realizing he really didn't know anything about her.

"And…?" Ruby prompted.

"A-and your hair color! Yeah!" Marcus blurted, using the first thing that caught his eye. Blank scratched his head.

"Is it some weird color or somethin'?" he asked. Ruby was about to scream at him for the use of 'weird', but then thought a little about what he said.

"Whut are ya talkin' about?" she tapped his eye patch to explain her meaning, "you can see plainly enough that my hair is green. Are ya color-blind or sumthang?" Ruby didn't quite understand why that remark caused both boys to shift and fidget uncomfortably.

"I'm… I'm totally… blind," Blank said quietly. Ruby stared for a minute.

"Then why have ya got only one eye covered up?" she asked.

"I was blind in my right eye from when I was born, so sometimes I couldn't throw a rock properly, or other stuff like that. When I was three, my mom didn't come home once, and I had to look myself after that. When I was four, I tried to steal something to hunt with, but I tripped and did my left eye on somethin' sharp".

"So now yer can't see no more?"

"Yeah. And I keep my left eye covered up because of the scar".

"Sorry ter hear that".

Blank shrugged. Marcus looked back and forth between his brother and the girl, and then slapped a hand to his forehead.

"Holy hell, we haven't even told you our names!" he exclaimed, "Sorry about that! Hey, I'm Marcus!" He held out his hand to Ruby, who shook it with a kind smile on her face.

"And I'm Blank," the other boy said simply, offering a smile but nothing beyond that.

"And as you know, I'm Ruby," Ruby said, straightening her white hat, "so whut were ya doin' chasin' all those tailed peoples fer?"

"You…noticed that huh?" asked Marcus.

"Indeed I did," Ruby replied.

"We were lookin' for someone. He's got floppy blond hair and a monkey tail, and his name is Zidane," Marcus explained.

"Oh, you know Zidane too?" Ruby asked. This rendered the boys dumbstruck.

"_You_ know him? Zidane_ Tribal_?" Blank asked, almost questioned.

"Of course I know 'im. He's real nice to me when he come to talk," Ruby went on, "he says he's part of an actin' group, just like I wanna be". The boys turned this discovery over in their minds and were about to ask when she last saw him, but were cut off.

"Well t'was nice ter meet you boys, but I gots to be on my way now". And with a skip in her run, she took off through the streets.

"Well, Bro, at least you made up with her," Marcus said to his brother. Blank didn't answer. He followed Ruby with his psychic gaze until she was well among other citizens, causing him to lose track of her.

_'Yeah, I guess I did smooth it out. But there was somethin' about her. I could feel it. She hasn't completely forgiven me yet'. _

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  

Blank and Marcus returned home to find the place completely locked up. Conveniently, they found a piece of parchment pinned to the heavy wooden front door. This saved them from looking all the way around the house to see why it had been bolted closed. In Baku's crude handwriting, the note said:

       Hey Fools! 

     You're not going to find me here. I've packed up because I'm moving us out of this dump to a place that is free of charge. 

     Go to the Theatre Clock and you'll see what I'm talking about.

                         --The Boss.

     P.S. leave this note on the door for the others, in case they haven't read it yet.

"Well, I guess we're goin' to the Theatre Clock," Marcus supposed, replacing the parchment on the wood.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  

"Wow Boss! This looks great!" Marcus exclaimed, scanning every inch of the Clock's interior with his eyes. Blank recognized things from home that had been shifted into the Theatre Clock, like the bunk beds, the table, the rugs, the cabinet, lots of things. 

"Yeah, I haven't moved all the stuff in 'ere yet, but when I do, this'll be our new hideout!" Baku proclaimed proudly, "This place is actually built wi' other rooms connected to this one, so we can live here permanently".

"How'd you moved all this stuff in one day, Boss?" Blank asked from the doorway. He jumped a foot in the air as a pair of blue bovine-faced people marched pass him, carrying Blank's bed with a number of jars and jugs balanced on top. They moved all the way to the back left corner of the room and disappeared from view through an almost unnoticeable doorway, then returned to stand near Baku.

"These guys are Benero and Zenero, they'll be joining us from now on," Baku introduced the odd looking young men next to him to Marcus and Blank. Both Benero and Zenero sported a pair of metal claws for hands, wearing black leather on their faces and striped linen everywhere else. 

"Why'd ya called it our new 'hideout' Boss?" Marcus inquired, after doing the welcoming rounds.

"Because we're gonna gain some respect throughout the Theatre District, boy," Baku said, "I'm expandin' our little family into somethin' more. From now on, we're "Tantalus", theatre group of professional actors! (Not to mention undercover thieves). Now enough of that! I'll talk more about it when Cinna gets here". Blank and Marcus made their way into the room Blank's bed had been carried into as Benero and Zenero went out again to collect more of their belongings.

"Well, this is a big change," Blank said to Marcus.

"No kidding. We should probably start to sort this room out," Marcus suggested.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

_~The next day. ~_

Blank's head snapped up when he heard Baku throw a punch in the next room, it being accompanied by an "Ooft!" and it continued like that several times more.

Wham!  "Ooft!"  
Pow!     "Nrgh!"  
Whack! "Ah!"  
Bam!     "Gaah!"  
  


He and Marcus flew to the doorway of the room where they had been in all morning, only to find a very angry looking Baku with his back to them. And lying on the rug in front of him was Zidane. Marcus had to be very persistent with his grip as he held Blank back, who was struggling to get into the room. The former also had a hand clamped over the latter's mouth, trying not to disturb Baku and Zidane.

"B-bastard..." Zidane muttered, wiping some blood from his cut lip. He was dressed in a completely different outfit, one that looked (in Zidane-clothing-tradition) slightly too big for him. Gray and teal gloves to match teal trousers, a white shirt with a lace collar tied with a blue ribbon, dark teal vest with leather straps and white and brown leather boots. Where had Zidane been only to return clad in _that?_ Zidane forced himself off the floor, glaring hatefully at Baku.

"Is beating the hell outta me gonna fix that I've been gone?!" he shouted, "If I knew you were gonna do that I would never have come back! I just wanted to find out where I really came from! Well I'm back now! And you knock me up?!" Baku snarled and turned to face Zidane, glaring just as hard. Blank stiffened as he felt the atmosphere thicken with anger. And then suddenly, it disappeared. 

"W-what?" Zidane whispered, eyes wide with shock.

"Just get outta my face, go find the others," Baku said softly, and then he made his way out of the building. Blank would not be held back any longer. With a final pull he wrenched his arms out of Marcus' grasp and was by Zidane's side in seconds. Zidane grunted as the other boys half dragged half carried him into their new bedroom.

"Are you even gonna tell us where you've been?!" Blank demanded, carefully depositing his brother on his own bed.

"Look, don't go into that now…" Zidane sighed, clutching his bruised sides, "…I'll tell ya later…"

Blank and Marcus left it there, and waited until Zidane was ready to explain why he left.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

"So he came back then?" Ruby asked as she walked with Blank down a cobble-stoned alley, delighted at the return of Zidane.

"Yeah! He came back!" exclaimed Blank, barely containing the joy he felt, "he just walked through the door looking really tired! I don't care anymore where he went, as long as he doesn't leave like that again!"

"I can understand that. Well I'll have ter come 'round and say hi to him sumtime, if that's alright with you guys?" Ruby suggested, fluttering her long lashes. She suddenly remembered he wouldn't have noticed the gesture, but was saved from feeling stupid when Blank simply grinned a broader grin and agreed, "That'd be great! I'm sure the Boss would like to meet you too!"

"Oh? Why's that, partner?" she asked.

"'Cos I've told him about you, and he likes the sound of a brash little girl that bosses us around!" Blank laughed. He was mildly surprised to feel the mood change within his younger friend, and was left scratching his head as she marched away mumbling to herself.

"…one insult after ah-nother,…rrrrmmffrarraa…lousy boys…rarrraaraaa…stupid Blank…"

**~~~~~~~~~~~~~~**  

_~5 years later.~_

Blank sighed and dug around in the chest at the foot of Cinna's bed, looking for another roll of bandages. Finding one, he took this coiled up fabric and returned to Zidane's bedside. 

"I thought you would've learned by now that the Boss is gonna beat you up every time you disappear on us like that," he said to his monkey-tailed brother. Zidane merely huffed irritably as Blank began wrapping up his left arm's bruised bicep. 

"I'm always helping you," Blank muttered, "dunno why I bother sometimes".

"You got me stumped why you keep doin' this to yourself, Zidane," Cinna added, entering the bedroom with a bowl of cold water and a rag. Marcus followed closely behind, shaking his head at Zidane's damaged state. 

"Yeah, whatever…" Zidane scoffed, twitching his tail in Blank's grasp. Blank cursed inwardly. Zidane wasn't making his job any easier as he kept fidgeting and moving around. Marcus rolled his eyes and clapped a hand on the monkey-tailed boy's shoulder. 

"C'mon Zidane, how old are you?" he said, "you're thirteen and you act like you're five. Grow up and tell us where you keep goin' or at least _why_ you do it?" He was given no response, and with a sigh, Marcus turned around and walked out again. Cinna watched him go, sighing a little himself. Handing the bowl and rag over to Blank, he took off after their eldest brother. Blank kept silent, concentrating on binding battered limbs. He was angry with Zidane. Everyone really cared about him. He was part of the family, but whenever he would just up and leave them like this, he never told them what, where or why about his absences. And it was hurtful. Blank didn't like feeling as though it was too precious to trust them with. He cared deeply for his brother, and wanted to know why he was being so stubborn. Zidane kept his gaze on the floor, a slightly less bitter expression on his face now.

"I'm sorry that I can't tell you guys…" Zidane mumbled, catching Blank's attention, "…it's just…too personal…" Blank tied the last knot of the bandage on Zidane's shoulder, and then picking up the rag dipped it in the water in the bowl. He began dabbing at the cuts on Zidane's eyebrow and lip. It had taken him ten years, but Blank's lessons in psychic vision had paid off. Small things were obvious to him now, like Zidane's fingers fiddling with his tail, or the way Zidane was looking at the ground shamefully.

"While I forgive you, I wish you'd tell me what it is that compels you to run off the way you do," Blank said softly. 

"…I…I-I just…can't, Blank…" Zidane forced out, turning away sharply. Blank dropped the rag back into the bowl where it splashed with a small _slosh_, and grabbing his brother around the shoulders hugged him from behind. 

"Promise me you will someday, " he said, holding Zidane's back against him, "Just promise you _will_ tell me…"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  

Marcus scratched his head as he looked around the Industrial District. He was used to people rushing around and what not, but not frantically as though they were anticipating some horrid event. He stopped a young man with an artist's hat pulled to the side of his head, and asked what was getting everyone so worked up about.

"A giant purple beast ran through the Air Car stations and their tracks, wrecking heaps of walls and causing loads building to fall!" the man cried, before rushing off the help carry the wounded coming from the Business District. Marcus immediately spun on his heel and bolted back towards the Theatre District.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  

"I couldn't find him," Cinna reported as he entered the bedroom again. Zidane groaned and fell back on his bed, flinging his arms up over his eyes. Blank stood, sighing long and exasperatedly. He grabbed his headband belt from the top of the chest, and flinging his eye patch into the air, placed the belt around his head, cover his eyes.

"I'll try to find him," he said, and made his way out of the room. Blank was about to exit through the doorway, but instead was thrown back suddenly when something large and currently almost panicked burst in through the doorway and knocked him to the ground. 

"Geez! I'm sorry, Bro!" Marcus exclaimed, helping Blank up off the floor, "But I've just found out that some big monster thing is runnin' around crashin' into stuff! Heaps of people are hurt and everything!" 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  

If anything were going to make your stomach turn, it would probably be the smell of singed flesh. Blank clasped both hands over his nose and mouth as they entered the main shopping street of the Business District, trying to block out the stench. Bodies were scattered randomly along the cobblestones, the odd building had collapsed, and many possessions and stores had been burnt. The District's residents ran back and forth in despair and panic, everyone on an instant reaction to help anyone and everyone in need. Children and women were crying, screams of anguish over a determined loss were heard, orders for more help and instructions for the next action were made. The scene should not have been witnessed by anyone. It shouldn't have happened.

"What kind of nightmare have you brought us to see, Marcus?" Cinna squeaked. Marcus gave him a pained look, and then pointed out into the middle of the street. 

"I think it's only logical that help is needed throughout Lindblum," he said, "you can be a coward later, Cinna". Cinna frowned at the comment. 

"But where do we start first? Helping the wounded or puttin' out fires?" Blank asked grimly, "Clearin' the streets or finding the damn monster? I'm open to suggestions, because we got one helluva mess to clean up".

"No kidding," Cinna sighed. The boys began to make their way among the flustered crowds, but stopped when they heard Zidane call from behind "Wait for me!"

They turned to see their monkey-tailed brother scrambling past soldiers in a frantic fashion to reach the other teenagers. Zidane came to a dramatic halt in front of them, placing one on his hands on his knee and the other over his bruised sides. 

"I-I'm…I'm comin' too. You guys…are gonna need...help," he wheezed. Blank felt like hitting him.

"Forget it. You're banged up bad enough from the beatin' the Boss gave you," Marcus said sternly, "Get home, you can't do anything in your condition".

"Besides hurting yourself some more," Cinna added. Zidane glared at Marcus, defiantly pushing past him, and the latter turned and grabbed former's arm as he went. The monkey-tailed teen winced, and shot another glare at Marcus.

"Go home, now," Marcus ordered, earning a snarl from Zidane. He tried again, twisting Zidane's arm, "Home. Go. Now". 

"Hey! Don't make the problem worse, Marcus!" Blank jumped in and loosened Marcus' grip with both hands. Marcus didn't move, but he let his brother go. Zidane stepped back and rubbed his arm. 

"At least…go and see how Ruby is doin'" he said. He turned and headed off in the direction of the Tantalus headquarters, leaving the other boys pondering their next move.

"Shit," Blank muttered, "we should have thought of Ruby earlier".

"Wait… which District does she live in again?" Cinna asked, scratching his nose. Marcus hit him upside the head, and made his way toward the Industrial District. Blank and Cinna followed him silently, keeping watch for anything suspicious and purple should it attack again. Every now and then the three teenagers would stop to help someone not capable of performing some task by themselves, piling stones or reassuring the hurt and grieving. Progress was slow; whatever abomination of pain had really caused major damage to the city 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  

"How many fires are throughout the city?!" Regent Cid exclaimed, among other orders he was handing out in the sudden uproar of chaos in Lindblum.

"Eighteen sire, and our water reserves are running low," the soot covered soldier reported grimly, stepping back another group of soldiers trooped past to go down into the city streets.

"Well then don't waste anymore of it!" Regent Cid shouted, then turned and ordered another soldier to take care of wounded coming into the castle, "Round up every Red Mage and soldier possessing magic in the city! I want to see Water spells being cast throughout the Districts with the next twenty minutes!" 

"Yes sire!" the soldier saluted and tore off down the hallway.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  

Blank spread yet another pile of rubble across the pavement in his desperate search for Ruby. The boys had come into the residential area of the Industrial District, only to find it was by far the worst hit of all the Districts. They were dismayed to find that Ruby's house had been totally leveled. Brick, wood, stone, any building material that was once part of the structure now lingered as individual pieces now. 

"Shit, shit, SHIT!!!" Blank shouted, throwing himself to the next heap. He prayed he wouldn't find Ruby under here, that she was already elsewhere and very safe. The last thing he needed was a friend to perish without his knowing about it. A short distance away, Marcus turned an accidental pile of planks over with one shove. The image of Ruby's crushed body flashed across his mind, causing the strong young man to work at a faster pace.

"A-aaaaaaaooohh shit!!!" 

They immediately turned at Cinna's scream to see him leap back from a pile he had been digging through. Blank made his way cautiously over to where Cinna stood going paler by the minute, to inspect this find and to see what had startled him. 

"Marcus, does Ruby's mother wear a bronze ring?" Blank asked. Marcus sighed and bowed his head.

"No Bro, but her aunty does," he answered gravely, and came around to them and looked down. A single elegant hand had been revealed from under the wreckage. It wasn't crushed, but judging from the thin trail of blood that ran down the arm and wrist, the owner of the on the limb probably had. The blood had caught upon said bronze ring and dripped between the fingers to create a small crimson pool. 

"God help us if Ruby is in there," Marcus muttered, and turned away from the dead woman's hand. Blank placed a broken sheet of chiprock wall covering over the limb, and then put a comforting hand on Marcus' shoulder. 

"A-aren't we gonna look around for her some more?" Cinna asked worriedly, casting a look back over the debris.

"If you wanna spring back in horror again and again, be my guest," Marcus said bitterly, I don't think I'd handle findin' Ruby lookin' like that". He gestured to the covered hand, and then shoved his own hands into his pockets. Blank sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. Why couldn't a tragedy happen to Alexandria for a change? He felt a new body make its appearance at the end of the former residential street, but he was too busy pondering Ruby's location to pay any attention to its presence.  Marcus however decided to look in the person's direction as they picked up more momentum, and he felt his heart leap up into his throat.

"That's Ruby!" was all he managed to blurt out before the girl crashed into him, knocking him into the remnants of the building. She jumped up without so much as an apology, and stared horror-struck at the sight before her. Every fragment, every shard, every splinter, not one detail of the destroyed house escaped her mute scrutiny. That included the streams of blood gently flowing from under the wreckage. She spied the trail coming from under the chiprock board, and kicking it over she let her gaze fall upon the intact hand. Tears ran unchecked and without a sound down her cheeks, and not in a lifetime would she be able to sum up the shattered feeling she felt as scene of death upon her doorstep filled her world.

Blank sensed it long before it happened. He leapt forward just as Ruby sank to her knees and screamed all her sorrow out as much as she could in one long angered shriek. She didn't care who heard her; she _wanted_ someone, anyone, EVERYONE to know of her pain. If there was a God, she hoped he heard her. Blank took Ruby by the shoulders and held her tightly as she struggled to break free of his grip, screaming all the while. Marcus knelt down and tried to assist his brother in restraining the hysterical girl. Before long she went from screeching to wailing pitifully, and finally she dissolved into a bout of sobbing, miserably clinging to the two teenage boys that held her. Cinna remained standing as he watched his brothers console the tearful girl, looking lost and defeated at the same time.

By the time Ruby had tired herself into silence, all the fires in the city had been put out, and the beast had been caught near the palace. Cheers and shouts went up in all areas of the city, spreading the news fast. Ruby couldn't have cared less. She had cried all her energy and anger away, and now sat staring dumbly at the dirt covered lace hem of her teal colored dress. She mostly sat across Blank's lap, leaning over and resting her head on Marcus' shoulder.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  

"Oh shit! Ruby, you okay kid? Are ya hurt?" Baku exclaimed as the boys brought her silently into the Tantalus headquarters. Marcus sat down on the old sofa in the planning room, pulling her down next to him. Ruby instantly pressed up against him in an unconscious effort to comfort herself, clutching his vest and staring into space. Zidane's eyes never left her tear stained face as she cried without making the slightest sound, watching her twitch every so often when an uncalled for sob rose up. 

"Yo, fools, c'mere," Baku ordered, nodding approval to Marcus whom seemed reluctant to leave Ruby alone, and the large man and the three teenagers left the room.

"Now it's obvious this is the fault of that goddamned monster crashin' about, but I wanna know _exactly_ what you found when yer found her," Baku demanded once they were away from the distraught girl's hearing range. 

"Her place was just toasted, Boss," Blank reported solemnly, "everyone was wasted. That simple, that horrific".

"Shit," Zidane swore, running a hand over his forehead and into his bangs.

"Well she'll stay wit' us now," Baku announced, ignoring the unanimous looks of shock the boys displayed, "you boys were practically brothers to her over the last few years anyhows". 

"B-boss?" Cinna spoke up, "Do you have any idea about raising a girl?"

"Does it matter?!" Baku fumed, "she's got no where to go, and we're the closing thing she's got as a family now. If you care about her, do the same as me and help her". Baku then stomped off in search of Benero and Zenero. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  

Ruby was becoming more aware of her surroundings again by the time the boys were tired enough to go to bed. The first thing she said was that she didn't want to sleep alone. Cinna, being the highest voted idiot of Tantalus, found his offer of company politely declined. Zidane gave Ruby a gentle hug, apologizing that he was too sore to have anyone else sharing his bed. The cause of said injuries were too embarrassing to explain. Marcus' hammock was really only for one person.

"So that leaves my bed, okay Ruby?" Blank said patting the space next to him on his mattress. Marcus blew out the candle lamp as Ruby slipped under the covers next to Blank, reflectively snuggling up to him. Blank petted her head and put a hand on her shoulder, trying to soothe her trembling. It would take a long time to heal the mental wounds she had received today.

It was quite a long time before anyone fell asleep, but it would be certain that Blank would be the last one. He stared up at the ceiling thinking of the day's events, berating the creature that had harmed Ruby's life. He felt Ruby stir next to him, and he felt her gaze fall upon his bare face, its scar uncovered.

"Blank?"

"Yeah Ruby?"

"…thank you Blank… fer helpin' me today…"

Next Chapter - Blank Script.

~QueenQeeko


	3. Blank Script

Disclaimer: 

Okay, this sucks like hell.

Final Fantasy IX belongs to SquareSoft and not to me.

I make no money from this fanfic; I'm just a miserable excuse for a living existence who gets creative using Square's FF characters.

So this time it's about Blank, who doesn't belong to me either.

By QueenQeeko.

**The Blank Impression.**

Chapter 3 - Blank Script.

Blank sighed and asked for the time again. He, Marcus and Cinna were waiting in the dark by the doorway of their Theater ship's planning room. Baku had briefed them that the Regent of Lindblum had given them the task of bringing Princess Garnet Til Alexandros 17th back to Lindblum. Gods knows why, but as long as Regent Cid Fabool kept his promise of a large, shiny reward, that was fine by them. Blank checked the watch for the second time.

"He's late again," he whispered irritably, "you'd think for once he could be early".

"Well, you know Zidane," Marcus whispered back.

"Yeah, I know Zidane," Blank grumbled. He instantly hushed when the doorknob turned, door opening enough to let a slim, agile body in, "Ah, there he is!"

"Sure is dark..." Zidane's voice said quietly, "Guess nobody's here yet..." He lit a match and began wandering around the room, taking an agonizingly long time. Blank listened patiently as his sixteen-year-old brother marched about.

Eventually, the monkey-tailed youth stooped down to the ground, mumbling, "Hey, someone dropped some gil…" he pocketed it, "…mine now". 

"So that's where I dropped it!" Cinna hissed quietly. Finally, after much trotting around by Zidane, Blank lost his patience.

"Light the candle in the middle of the room!" he called. _'Why am I always helping him?_

It was satisfying that Zidane did in fact do just that.

  
"Who's there?" Cinna called. Marcus knocked his helmet and hissed, "You know who it is!"  
   
"It's me, Zidane!" the monkey-tailed youth called back. The other three Tantalus members swung the door open the whole way and filed into the brightly lit room. Trademark Tantalus salute, and formalities were finished.  
  
"Hey, Zidane! You sure are late!" Blank told him, straightening the belt around his head.  
  
"Sorry," Zidane rubbed the back of his head, "so, where's the Boss?"  
   
Cinna shrugged. "Ain't here yet."  
  
A scraping noise caught all four teens' attentions, and they turned around to witness a large dragon headed humanoid leap down from the stairs and roar its challenge to them. They instantly drew their assorted weapons and stepped into their familiar battle line formation, Blank on one end, then Marcus, Cinna and Zidane at the other end. The monster produced its own sword from its belt, and waving it around leaped forward at Zidane…

"Owww!"

…And tripped.

The boys all blinked, and then dropped back into their respective battle stances. Marcus attacked first, swinging his sword at the monster and claiming a direct hit. Zidane dashed forward and sliced at the beast, then ducked around it tried to see what he could steal. He returned to his place in line empty-handed. Blank took his turn next, striking at the creature in an upward motion. The monster leapt forward and tripped again, before jumping back in time to receive a knock over the head from Cinna's hammer. Marcus scored another hit on the monster the next time he attacked, and Zidane couldn't help but grin as he acquired a Wrist from the creature. 

"Get some!" the monster shouted as it came forward and slashed Marcus across the shoulder. Blank growled, but smirked to himself as he dealt the beast a deep cut from his own sword. The monster roared angrily at the attack and with an obnoxious "Ha HAH!" it jumped forward again and smacked Cinna over the head with the flat of the blade. Cinna slumped down, leaning on his hammer for support.

"Cinna, get back out of this row and heal yourself," Zidane hissed, jumping aside as the creature swung its sword over his head. Cinna nodded, and stepping into a 'back row' opened a Potion and drank it. Marcus charged again, but this time the monster evaded it. Zidane tried his luck at stealing again.

"Ooh! A High Potion!" he beamed. 

"Keep your mind on the task at hand, if you'd please, Zidane," Marcus scolded as Blank jumped forward and brought his sword down on the monster's left shoulder. Cinna bounced up to it this time, smacking it over the head with his hammer. The monster came forward again, and slashed at Blank, who only just managed to block it with his sword. Marcus attacked the monster for the third time, and suddenly its head split in two, revealing the true enemy.

"UGHUUH!!! Oh, my head!" Baku hollered, holding his sore head, "Go easy you guys!" He put his sword away, and looked around the boys. Blank, Zidane, Cinna and Marcus all slumped down with various "Whew"s.  

"Hey, fools!" Baku exclaimed in delight, patting Zidane on the head, "You're lookin' a lot better!" The large man looked around his sons again, and laughed.

"Gwahahaha!" he roared, "Alright! Let's start this meeting already!" The boys all rolled their eyes, and the four of them followed Baku into an adjacent room. In there, the five of them surrounded a table, with a construction of the Castle of Alexandria on the tabletop. It was an antique that Marcus had acquired from the actual castle itself about a year ago, serving as a dollhouse for Cinna's toy. Blank scanned the room thinking off hand.

_'That's strange, he boss doesn't normally discuss missions with Ruby, Benero and Zenero…'_ Blank thought.   
   
"Here's the plan!" Baku began, "Tantalus, the infamous band of daring thieves (that's us), is headin' to the Kingdom of Alexandria...Our mission: to kidnap the heir to the throne, Princess Garnet!" As he said this he brought out of his pocket a small princess doll, supposing to represent their target.

  
"I'll take it from here, so listen up!" Cinna chirped, standing up and producing from behind him a replica of their ship, the Prima Vista, "Our ship's about to dock at Alexandria...And when it does, we're gonna put on our costumes...and perform 'I Want to Be Your Canary,' the most popular play in Alexandria! Break a leg, Marcus! 'Cause you're playin' the lead!"  
   
"Leave the actin' to me! Of course, the real kidnappers'll be Blank and Zidane," Marcus said.  
  
"I'll distract the audience from backstage with these little buggers," Blank added in, holding out a palm-sized flea-like creature. A look of disgust floated over his face, "I can't stand oglops...But I'll manage, so don't worry about me. And that'll be your cue, Zidane!"  
  
 "Okay!" Zidane grinned, " That's when I kidnap Princess Garnet, right?" Blank and Marcus gave an exasperated look upon that statement, feeling sorry for the princess for having to meet Zidane. He'll be trying to seduce her from the word 'go'. Baku didn't notice.  
  
"You bet!" he said, "You're gonna kidnap the most babe-ilicious beauty in all of Alexandria, Princess Garnet!"

"YEAH!!!" they all shouted. 

"Alright get out of 'ere, you lot," Baku ordered. They all saluted, and then dispersed out of the room to their respect duties. Blank watched his brothers sift out, as he remained leaning against the wall. Baku failed to notice him, picking up plans and shoving them into draws as he mumbled his own lines from the play to himself. He gathered up the miniature caste and placed it in the safe at the back of the room before knocking over a waste paper basket and cursing quietly. Blank allowed his psychic gaze to help him follow his adoptive father around the room, right up until Baku nearly bumped into the young man with a half broken broom.

"Yer lost something?" Baku asked, looking Blank up and down. Blank shrugged.

"I'm not looking for anything," he said, getting up from the wall and making his way out. Blank sighed as he stepped out of the room. A kidnapping huh? Where the hell did Baku get the idea that they could actually pull this off? A _princess_ of all people to abduct. Sheer suicide. Thank God he only had to keep look out as Zidane did his job to drug her. Then, being the stronger one, Blank just had to carry her out swiftly. Not that the monkey-tailed teen was weak, but his blind brother would simply do it faster. Hopefully Zidane would be able to handle any problems on the way. But then maybe he was just being too paranoid. Blank was a skilled thief after all.

Another sigh from Blank, and he set off for the boiler room. Might as well check the engine… As he went pass, an arm that shot out from the doorway of the instrument storage room and stopped him.

"Somethin' on your mind, Bro?" Marcus asked, shifting his hand up from Blank's chest onto his brother's shoulder. Blank didn't bother to remove it. 

"Yeah, I'm making a mental Will," he said, turning his head to face Marcus. He could sense a sad smile on his fanged brother's face. "Oh, don't look at me like that, Marcus…"

"Why not? You should know by now that I'm gonna worry every time you go and get this depressed," Marcus said, stepping out of the doorway to in front of Blank.

"I'm not being depressed, I'm being practical. You can have my bottle and potion stash if I die and you don't."

"Bro…" 

"And you can have this too," Blank drew his sword and held it straight up in front on him. Marcus hesitated, but eventually, he withdrew his hand from Blank's shoulder and brought out the sword's twin. He held it out as Blank did the same, pressing the flats of the two blades together. 

"You'll be to take mine too, Blank," Marcus said, "but no one's gonna die, Bro, I promise you that."

"Yeah, Bro," Blank answered, putting his sword away. He saluted his brother, and continued on towards the engine room. Taking a left turn before the stairs he entered under one of the Mist engines. The boilers were overheating and spitting out steam everywhere. 

"Lazy ass…" Blank muttered, and turning a few knobs watched as the dials began to read more favorable temperatures. "Woulda thought Cinna knew how to take care of his own duties."

"He _was_ dealing with them," came a voice from above him, "but _someone _was so paranoid about this mission I decided to work on a few escape routes." Blank growled up at Cinna's face grinning down at him through a hatchway in the engine room's ceiling. 

"You should tend to the ship first in future, rather than working on a little project that could have cost the airship itself," Blank snapped. 

"Yeah, yeah, whatever, just get up here," Cinna shrugged it off and tossed a rope down through the hatchway. Blank sighed again. Taking hold of the inch thick twine, he shot up the rope and found himself back in the planning room. 

"Not bad," Blank commented as his potbellied brother closed the hatch and swung the table back over it, "at least we have more ways of getting around. Good job." 

"I hope so, good enough for you?" Cinna asked, dusting off his hands, "You being the one not wanting to die so bad."

"Oh shu-"

"Kinsmen! Hii!" 

Blank and Cinna cast they glaze over to the open doorway, where an over exaggerating Zidane stumbled in, holding two wooden swords. He collapsed to the ground in mock exhaustion and held a sword out to Blank.

"Thou must hear my message! Marcus! He hath been thwarted again by Leo!" Zidane cried. "Doth love still exist?" 

"Oh the drama…" Blank groaned as Cinna dropped into his role.

"Nay Kinsman! Not while thy evil stands in thou's way!" Cinna answered Zidane, taking the practice sword and shoving it into Blank's hands, "Thrice now King Leo hath crossed our Marcus!"

"Bereft of father! Bereft of mother!" Blank said next, deciding to play along in their roles before they docked. "Marcus! Thou hast lost even thy love!"

"Fortune hath escap'd thee!" Cinna cried, "For what end shalt thou live?"

  
"For the sake of our friend..." Zidane said, rising from the ground with an elaborate swing of the sword and almost knocking over Marcus as he came in the door. "L-let us bury our steel in the heart of the wretched King Leo!"  
  
"Aye!" Cinna squeaked before laughing. Marcus swatted Zidane over the back of the head playfully and striding across the room, took a seat and leaned back in it. 

"We shall back thee, Kinsman!" Blank shouted to Marcus, darting around behind his brother's chair.  
  
"Pray, sheathe thy swords! This villain is mine alone!" Marcus said in full role without getting up.

"Nay, Kinsman!" Cinna brandished his hammer, "For I, too, have lost a brother to this fiend!"  
  
"What ho? Out, vermin! Away!" Zidane barked, doing his best impression of Baku. He puffed his cheeks as he said this and lumbered around in an abstract circle, earning the laughter of his brothers. "Thou darest bare thy sword before the King!? All who stand in my way will be crush'd!" He then sagged into his own role again, swinging the wooden sword back and forth over his head. "Treacherous Leo, my Kinsman's suffering shall not be in vain!" He swung the sword out to the side. "For I shall instruct thee in his incomparable _pain_!" 

"Awwk!"

Zidane dared not move and blanched. Upon the word 'pain', the hilt of the wooden sword had made a collision with Baku's nose, accurate to the word said at that moment. The other teens were barely suppressing their mirth as Baku stepped around Zidane and dealt the monkey-tailed teen a smack over the head.

"Not a bad practice, fools," Baku stated, looking around the room, "just watch where yer swingin' stuff."

"I'll say…" Zidane muttered, rubbing his sore head. A moment later, Benero came charging in with a spanner in hand.

"Almost to the castle, Boss!" he huffed in his deep bovine voice.

"Great!" Baku exclaimed, "You lot! Get yerselves ready now, show time!"

"YEAH!!" shouted everyone. Trademark-Tantalus-salute. Blank followed his brothers out to the storeroom containing their props. The boys didn't have to bother with costumes, their own clothing served well enough. Baku and Ruby would don new outfits for the play though.

"Blank!"

Speaking of Ruby…

"Yeah, Ruby?" Blank asked with a sigh. Fifteen-year-old Ruby was of course playing Cornelia, and being the lady she was, demanded nothing but the best cosmetics. She stomped up to him and pressed a small purple bottle into his hands.

"Whut the hell is that?" she asked, glaring at him. Blank briefly examined the bottle. 

"Looks like perfume," he said. 

"Perfume that smells awful! I told yer that I need sumfink _glamorous_ fer the part of Cornelia, and you concocted this?!" 

"Sheez, who the hell is gonna be able to smell you from the audience? The only one that'll get any benefit from your flowery stench is Marcus. Look, it smells fine, it'll be good enough for the play and we don't have time anyway."

The whole ship rocked suddenly, before slowly descending in the theater dock of the castle. Ruby glared at Blank again.

"Well fine!" she snapped. "I'll wear it, but next time make sumfink a liddle more _classy_!" She then proceeded to deal him a punch to the stomach and stormed off.

"Reoow hiss!" Zidane cawed, laughing as Blank turned and growled at him. 

"She's always got somethin' to bitch about…" he muttered, looking through the sword bin for a suitable weapon on stage," …and it's always to me! 'Blank this!' and 'Blank that!' Arrggh!" 

"C'mon, Bro," Marcus soothed, trying to prevent the blind teen from beating his head into the wall, "it's probably 'that time of the month' or somethin' like that." 

"Sheez, seems to be like that a lot when it's around me!" 

The boys all filed out of the room as the ship lowered into place and locked into the dock. They each looked out of the many windows along the side of the Prima Vista. Swarms of nobles from Alexandria, Lindblum and Treno alike were pushing through the castle compound gates, eager to take their seats in the amphitheater. 

"Play's not even gonna start for another hour," Marcus said, looking the nobles over with an expression of pity. "They're all gonna be devastated when they realize their princess is gone."     

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The outer hall of the theater ship lifted in an explosion of fireworks, the band was elevated way above the stage they revealed and music and cheers filled the castle compound. 

"This is gonna be gold," Cinna muttered from off stage. 

"This is gonna be suicide if we screw up, so don't," Blank mumbled, and shrugged off his tattered hood and cape. He didn't think he'd need it on stage. 

  
Baku pulled his royal robes on. He waited for the band to finish their number before he entered onto the stage, and the applause died down.  
  
"Ladies and Gentlemen!" Baku spoke with a refined accent and careful pronunciation of his words, "Tonight's performance is a story that takes place long, long ago. Our heroine, Princess Cornelia, is torn from her lover, Marcus. She attempts to flee the castle, only to be captured by her father, King Leo. When our story begins, Marcus, having heard this, crosses swords with the King." Baku could see Queen Brahne easily (who could miss her?) up in the royal box and a little off to the side was the lovely Princess Garnet. She didn't appear very interested. 

_'Not surprised, ungrateful brat,'_ Baku thought, and then returned to his lines. He made a graceful sweep of his hand towards the royal box. "And now, Your Royal Majesty, Queen Brahne, Your Highness, Princess Garnet...noble ladies and lords, and our rooftop viewers, Tantalus proudly _presents 'I Want to Be Your Canary'!"  
_  
"Here's goes!" Zidane whispered as Marcus and Cinna marched on stage. 

The performance went on successfully. For a full hour misery and contempt ruled the stage, and Blank wondered how many times he had done this play. It was the first time they had performed _'I Want to Be Your Canary'_ in Alexandria, although every other time they didn't have so much dependant on their acting skills. They would have to work quickly, and without it being too evident that they had been offstage for very long. 

Blank wiped his face and was about ready to bust one on Cinna when Zidane came up to them with a grin on his young face. 

"And now to our favorite part!" He went to a dark area backstage. Blank and Cinna knelt down. A new section of the ship shifted revealing the two actors on an extension of the stage. 

"Kinsmen! Hii!" Zidane stumbled in on them, and they went to his sides. "Thou must hear my message! Marcus! He hath been thwarted again by Leo!" Zidane cried. "Doth love still exist?" 

"Nay Kinsman! Not while thy evil stands in thou's way!" Cinna answered Zidane. "Thrice now King Leo hath crossed our Marcus!"  
  
"Bereft of father! Bereft of mother!" Blank cried, standing up, "Marcus! Thou hast lost even thy love!"  
  
"Fortune hath escap'd thee!" Cinna joined him above the ground level. "For what end shalt thou live?"

  
"For the sake of our friend..." Zidane pulled himself together, "Let us bury our steel in the heart of the wretched King Leo!"  
  
"Aye!" Blank and Cinna shouted. Blank sighed inwardly as he ran onstage towards Marcus. On the stage, the lightning effects were sparking, and the three of them stopped behind Marcus. Ahead of them, were Baku, dressed as King Leo, and on either side of him were Benero and Zenero.  
  
"We shall back thee, Kinsman!" Blank shouted.  
  
"Pray, sheathe thy swords! This villain is mine alone!" Marcus answered, being sure to place a steady hand on his sword hilt.   
  
"Nay, Kinsman!" Cinna replied, dropping his gaze to the floor. "For I, too, have lost a brother to this fiend!"  
  
"What ho? Out, vermin! Away!" Baku growled. Had he not been such a brilliant actor he wouldn't have been able to handle the accent. "Thou darest bare thy sword before the King!? All who stand in my way will be crush'd!"  
  
"Treacherous Leo, my Kinsman's suffering shall not be in vain!" Zidane snapped as Marcus drew his sword. "For I shall instruct thee in his incomparable pain!" And with that Zidane leapt forward and attacked Benero, pretending to slash the blue-skinned, bovine man with the flat of his blade. Marcus went to attack Baku, but found the 'king' to be very evasive. Blank stepped forward and grinned at Zenero, who in turn nodded. Special Effect magic was commonly used in well-written plays, and Blank made use of his. Casting Pyro, he set it upon Zenero, and in an explosion of fake fire, Zenero stumbled back in phony injury. Cinna simply bounced forward and smacked Baku over the head with his hammer. Zidane decided on Meteo, and he cast his Special Effect magic on Baku as well. Marcus, being the hero of the story, was the one that had to cut down King Leo in the play, and thus was thoroughly annoyed when Zidane dashed ahead again and drove his sword through Baku's robes. 

The crowd gasped.

"You idiot!" Blank hissed at Zidane as he darted back again. "Now Baku has to drop back from you!"   
   
"Arrg... Grrr..." Baku groaned. He stumbled off up the stairs on stage left, and looking down at the four teenagers from center back stage, declared: "Thou hast not seen the last of me, Marcus!"  
  
"Come back!" Zidane shouted. Blank frowned, and then he let out a sigh, jumping in front of the stairs to block his brother's path.   
  
"Out of my way, Blank!" Zidane shouted, slashing at the blind 'traitor' of the story.   
  
"Consider this, Zidane! If Prince Schneider were to marry Princess Cornelia, peace would reign over both their kingdoms!" Blank argued, spreading his hands apart.  
  
"'Tis foolishness! If all were so easy, why, none would suffer in this world!"  
  
Zidane chased Blank up the way 'King Leo' had fled, slashing at him with a confident, "Aha!" Blank went, "Mph!" respectively as he dodged the blow. He slashed back again, and as his monkey-tailed brother flipped over his sword, he took a step back and leaped back down into the center of the stage. Zidane followed him as they ran passed Marcus, spinning him around and faced each other again right in front of the audience.   
   
"En garde!" Blank challenged, quietly whispering, "(Hey, you remember the moves, right?)."  
  
"Expect no quarter from me! (Not one!)" Zidane answered. Blank growled in annoyance.

"(Then just follow my lead! Duck!)" Blank whispered, and the fight continued on: Blank giving Zidane his directions to matched his own. A few times Zidane stumbled back when he got a command wrong, but eventually it looked as though they could leave stage with a satisfied audience.    
   
"We shall finish this later!" Blank announced, running away towards the castle.

  
"Come back here!" Zidane called, following him. Blank dashed away into a hall opening away from the crowd's vision. The area was dark; seemingly that the guards thought no one would come through there. Zidane then appeared at Blank's side.

"Where's the Pluto Knight's home room?" the monkey-tailed teen whispered.

"Recon stated that it was just ahead," Blank replied. They pressed up against the wall in the shadows as a pair of Alexandrian soldiers passed by, chatting casually. Following behind them were two dodgy knights. The two men were apparently quite taken with the ladies' figures and were only too happy to point out pleasing features to each other. Blank grinned a mischievous grin. He nodded once to followed after the knights, alternating the shadows of doorways to hide in as he moved forward. Eventually, the two knights took a left down another corridor and into a stone walled room through a large timber door.  

"Doof!"

"Ungha!"

Blank and Zidane looked down at their handy work.   
 

"I love how versatile a simple sword can be," Blank grinned, indicating the hilt of his weapon that he had just used to knock one of the knights out. Zidane's dagger hilt had served the same purpose, and the other knight lay unconscious at his feet. Blank knelt down and began to steal the knight's armor. Which each snap of a catch and click of a bolt, more pieces of the suits of armor were removed. Blank looked his armor inside and out. 

_'Ew,'_ he thought, _'these guys should really take care of their clobber a bit better. Look at that rust.'_ He then began to dress. Luckily, the armor, being the property of the overweight knight, was large enough to accommodate all of Blank's extra equipment. Still, he couldn't help but laugh at the two knights snoozing away on the floor.

  
"Hehehe!" Blank sniggered. "Finished changing, Zidane?"  
   
"Yeah, but this helmet..." Zidane screwed up his face and tossed the head gear over his shoulder, "it kinda smells..."  
   
"What are you talkin' about!? My helmet totally reeks! My armor's way too big..." He rattled his armor, "And my back's real itchy..." he showed how he couldn't get to the itch, "The boots are wet..." he stomped up and down squishily, "My gloves are all slimy..." he tugged at the worn leather coverings "There's cookie crumbs in my pocket..."  
   
"Okay, I get the picture..." Zidane said, putting a hand to his forehead, signaling to Blank to cease his strange little dance. "You still have the package, right?"  
   
"Don't worry! I won't screw up!" Blank replied. As if only to prove him wrong, a single oglop leaped out from under Blank's chest plate and proceeded to bounce around the two thieves. He stepped forward and grabbed it during a mid jump.   
  
"Alright! First, I'll go pour some sleep potion into Princess Garnet's teacup!"  
   
"And I've got a special something for the lovely queen!" Blank knelt down next to the stripped, unconscious knights and chuckled. "Hehehe. They're sleeping so soundly!" Blank leaped up and ran over to the other wooden door.    
  


Sneaking out of the room Blank found himself in a marble hall of the castle. No one was around.  
  
_'Surely when there were this many strangers in the country and the castle that there would be more guards around…'_ He thought suspiciously. "According to recon...the royal seats should be right above these stairs!" Blank proposed, making way over to a winding staircase.

   
"Got it!" Zidane agreed, and then turned in reaction to the quick crowd-cheer that erupted out by the stage.

   
"Uh-oh! The scene where Marcus sneaks into Cornelia's chamber is about to start!" Blank started, "Let's get this over with before the finale, okay?" Blank stepped aside from to allow Zidane to run up the stairs ahead of him, and then went to follow him. He froze when he noticed his monkey-tailed brother halt at the top step with flailing arms. Someone had apparently stopped him.

  
"Umm... Would you please let me pass?"  
  
A female someone, judging by the voice.   
  
_'C'mon Zidane, don't start flirting, we've got stuff to do,'_ Blank growled in his thoughts. He turned his attention to another cheer from the crowd. 

_'Shit, we don't have much time,'_ he thought. Blank let his psychic vision float around him, taking a glance at the girl. She was wearing a hood, that's all he could tell.   
  
"…thought maybe you were the one I'd been waiting for all this time."  
   
"Excuse me? You were waiting for me?"  
   
"Yeah! I've dreamt of meeting you here ever since I was born!"  
   
"Do you mock me?"  
   
"No, of course not..."  
 

_'Of course he does,'_ thought Blank irritably, _'he waits all the time for a lay.'_ Blank sighed and leant against the wall, waiting for Zidane to finish his stupid conversation. Although if any of the guards were to come by now they'd be screwed. Then Blank heard rushed footsteps above. Immediately he leaped up and ran straight up the stairs as Zidane was saying,  "Say, you wouldn't-"  
  
Getting to near the top Blank asked, "Hey, what's goin' on, Zidane?"  
  
"I must go!" the girl squeaked, dashing pass Zidane and then Blank who found himself spun around.  
   
"Who the heck was that!?" Blank asked, trying to regain balance.  
  
"Get up, Blank! That was Princess Garnet!" Zidane yelped, leaping over Blank's head.  
  
"Are you serious!?" Blank choked, taking off after him. He dashed along down the stairs and to the left down the marble halls, tailing Zidane and the hooded girl. 

"Tell me that really isn't her!" Blank asked, catching up to Zidane's side. 

"It's definitely her!" the monkey-tailed youth snapped. "But we have to split up!"

"What?! Why?" his blind brother demanded. They turned sharply to the right down a stair case and right again into a kitchen, following the girl through the chaos of several confused Kitchen Masters at work.

"Because if we stay together," Zidane dived under a falling pile of plates that were knocked off balance when the girl shoved an Onion Master into them, "everyone will notice two knights chasing the girl! If we call attention to ourselves we're screwed! Go!"

"Grr…" Blank growled, and spinning on his heel departed the kitchen amongst the cookery. He ran out of the castle following the tiled floor outside. Stopping at the steps, he thought for a moment. 

_'Well now what? We don't much longer before Zidane has to be back on stage,'_ Blank pondered, sitting down, _'how did I know this would get screwed up?'_ Blank's musings were interrupted when a fairly young Pluto Knight approached him, looking shaken. 

"Hey, has the Captain been by you yet?" he asked curiously. Blank could see that it seemed important to this knight. 

"Uh, no," he answered cautiously, "is something wrong?" 

"Oh the Captain is absolutely in a state of almost hysteria!" the knight sighed, shaking his head. "The guys are all getting it from him because Princess Garnet has turned up missing!" 

"Oh crap, " Blank gasped, feigning interest, "so is the Captain tearing around telling us to find her?"

"Pretty much, yeah," the knight replied, "so anyhow, if you see him, take caution."

"Sure, thanks," Blank answered, standing up and deciding to take a walk around east of the castle. His travels were short as he found his way blocked by a caged waterway entrance. 

_'Guess it's as good a place as any to stand watch,'_ he thought. A cheer went up from the stage area of the castle. 

_'Hmm, maybe they can stall until we get back,'_ Blank mused, turning to find another knight already advancing on him.

_'Shit! This has gotta be the Captain!_' Blank thought, judging from the superior (but rusty) armor he was wearing.

   
"Nobody has come this way either, sir," Blank said, saluting in what he hoped was a salute used by the Pluto Knights. The tall knight glared at Blank almost as if he shouldn't have opened his mouth, and then turned and jogged away, clanking as he went.

"Whew," Blank sighed. Supposing the Pluto Knight's captain ran into Zidane, it would be bad news, but Blank decided not to worry as he heard clanking going up the tower. 

"Better get back to the Prima Vista…" 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Hey Blank!" Ruby called poking around Blank's helmet, "Is that you under dere?"

"No ma'am, I am Pluto Knight Bob, ma'am."

"It's you," she chuckled, so where's the princess then, we gottsa wrap this show up soon."

"We're working on that okay?" Blank, looking around himself. "So how is the show goin'?"

"Swell, the crowd's bin throwin' us lots of Gil," Ruby answered. Blank nodded and taking off his heavy helmet, sat down heavily against the wall. 

"Didn't dey have size small in armor?" Ruby asked, peering down on him. Blank simply shrugged, and then jumped up again in alarm as a huge crash over head woke him from his rest. A few boards of timber rained down on them, and Blank snatched Ruby away from the dropping wood. 

_'Shit, that helmet up there looks like the Pluto Knights' captain's!'_ Blank thought irritably, casting his attention upwards. There was no mistaking the large feathered helmet and the squirming arms with it_. 'That probably means that Zidane and the princess are on the ship! I gotta get outside!'   
  
_

"Ruby, if that knight comes by you, you haven't seen the princess, got that?" Blank said urgently.

"But I don't-"

"I gotta go!" 

Blank ran around the corner pass the band and flung himself over the railing, sliding down the boards and landing near the stage, he could see Baku prancing around ordering Benero and Zenero around, and quickly shot around the ship. 

"Need it to look like I found the ship by accident!" Blank muttered to himself as he neared the side entrance. As he drew closer, the armor-borrowing thief could already hear the Pluto Knight Captain trying to get in.

_'Must have slid down too,'_ Blank thought, pressing himself against the side of the Prima Vista.

"Princess! Princess? PRINCESS!!!" 

_'Sheez he's loud.'_

Suddenly there was a crash, as the captain put his sword through the door. He leap inside continuing to call "Princess!" as he ran around.

  
"Princess?" the Captain asked, walking around in circles. "Princess...Princess! Princess...? PRINCESS!!!?"

_'Time to go in,'_ thought Blank as he rounded the corner. This brought another "Princess?" out of the captain.  
   
"Where have you been!?" the over armored man demanded.  
  
"Sir! I'm sorry, sir!" Blank answered, saluting again. They bother heard a noise beyond the planning room. 

   
"Princess!"

There was another noise. The reaction this brought out of the captain of the Pluto Knights as to run up to the door and start pounding on the door.

"Princess!" he shouted. Blank let him do this for a few minutes before he was call upon to open it.

"Yes sir," Blank answered, and walking up to it turned the knob. The captain just stared at the door for a moment before throwing Blank a furious glare and stormed in.

_'Sheez, nice way of saying thanks,'_ Blank grumbled internally as he followed the big armor covered knight. The room was empty although it still appeared different to Blank. The table had been tipped over, Cinna's trapdoor open. _'Shit, they already fled through it.'  
  
_"The princess must be down there!" the captain hollered. Blank had no intention of making it easy for the knight to find the princess and stepped forward immediately.  
   
"I-I'll go first, sir!" he shouted and jumped in back first. The desired affect was obtained, and balancing between the armor and his sword, Blank managed to become effectively wedged in the hatch opening.  
  
"Hey!!! What do you think you're doing!?" the captain barked, clanking impressively as he jumped up and down.  
   
"Captain, sir! I'm stuck, sir!" Blank exclaimed, pointing out the obvious. The captain growled furiously.   
  
"Grrrr! Blast it!!!" he snapped, and ran out of the room. Blank continued to struggle for a moment, and when he deemed it safe to do so, stopped and checked the captain had left.

   
"Hehehe. He bought it!" he laughed, and sat back against the hatch, stretching his arms. 

Soon he curled up and dropped into the hole, landing like a cat on all fours. He perked up and caught Cinna's thumbs-up as they fled through another door leading to the under stage controls. Blank leaped up and raced down and around the engine room. As he neared the doorway the others had gone through, he heard the booming voice of that blasted knight again.

  
"Aha! Princess! I, Steiner, have come to your rescue!" went the boastful proposal.

_'So that's his name…Enter stage left,'_ Blank thought, entering the room to find Zidane, Cinna and the princess of Alexandria bailed up by the captain.

   
"You needn't worry, Your Highness!" he said to the alarmed looking girl. He grinned wickedly to himself as the captain said "Good work! This will be remembered as the Pluto Knights' finest hour!"  
  
"Hehehe!" Blank chuckled, "Just relax, Princess. We'll get you outta here!" Steiner displayed a gaping mouth as he realized who he had been running around with for the last ten minutes.  
  
"WHAT!!!?" he shouted, "You're not one of my knights!" Blank and his Tantalus brothers stepped forward, forming a line in front of the princess.  
  
"You can just..." said Zidane.  
  
"...leave the princess..." said Cinna.  
  
"...to us!" said all three.  
  
Before anyone knew it, the four men started into another fight and the princess was left to watch from behind. Blank didn't mind the battle so much, but he detested the bulky armor he had to fight in. As far as he could tell, they were winning, judging from how quickly the knight wore down. After one attack from Zidane however, the Captain of the Pluto Knights raised his sword quite menacingly.

"I'll never give up!" said Steiner, his sword glowing blue.

_'Oh crap, I think that looks like…'_ Blank thought, but then the blue beam was fired at him, _'…Armor Break…'_ Blank's armor split apart and fell to the ground, and with them oglops from the box bounced out everywhere. Had Blank been paying attention, he would have heard the knight shouting "N-no! I hate oglops!" but he was too busy going blue in the face. A single oglop sat on his forehead, going "Kriiiip!" 

"Aaaaaahhh! Get it off! Get it off! Get it off! Get it off!" Blank grabbed the stray oglop and toosed it off his head. He then proceeded to runs around with the captain and Cinna shouting things like, "I hate oglops!" and "Oglops are the worst!" Everywhere he turned there were more oglops. Big oglops, small oglops, some as big as your head; oglops were all over the place. Blank pulled his sword from the scabbard in a state of panic and took random swings at the oversized bugs.

"I…" swish, "hate…" swing, "…oglops!" _chop!_  
  


Blank lashed out blindly until few oglop pieces even twitched anymore. He turned around in time to witness Steiner exiting through the last door to the room directly under the stage. Blank dashed after him, hearing a "Stop!" and a "Yow!" Getting into the room he found Cinna laying on the floor in a dizzy manner and two platforms raising up into the stage.

"Shit," Blank swore, helping Cinna up off the floorboards, "it's up to the Boss to deal with that one." 

"If Queen Brahne sees the knight up on stage and recognizes him, we're screwed!" Cinna exclaimed, taking off towards the engine room.  

"Agreed, we gotta get outta here!" said Blank, taking off after him. He nodded to Cinna, knowing that his brother knew to go straight for the anchors and unhook the Prima Vista while Blank would prepare the Mist engines. Cinna hooked a rope up to the hatch hole and climbed up, taking the fastest way to the exterior of the airship. Blank turned his attention to the biggest mist engine, and leaping up grabbed its largest lever.

"Come… on!" Blank growled, pulling as hard as he could despite the growing heat of the lever. He finally got in to move down and steam short out of its many outlets. Blank narrowly ducked the steam and went to the next one, turning knows and reading dials.

"Oi, Blank!" came a voice from overhead. Blank went about dealing with the belts leading to the propellers. 

"Yeah Zenero?" Blank yelled above the noise of the engine room and when he was given no answer, he realized that Zenero wanted him to come back up. One last check and Blank struggled up the rope to arrive back in the planning room.

"What's happening?" he demanded, running after Zenero towards the storage rooms. 

"The Boss and the others are improvising on stage, we gotta get the ship ready to depart," was the answer Zenero gave. Blank nearly tripped over from the display of intelligence. 

"Oh, ya think!" he snapped, stopping Zenero in the storage hall. "And what makes you say th-"

Blank stopped short when he noticed a flash from around where the band was. Creeping forward slowly, he approached the balcony the band stood upon and looked out over the stage. He felt his heart plummet when his psychic vision took in all the events below; he saw a cape and hood being flung away, Princess garnet standing in full view of everyone within a mile radius and two Pluto Knights on stage with Captain Steiner. Blank barely heard Baku's words to Zidane as he ran pass Zenero to find Cinna. He found the pot-bellied teen as he was re-entering the ship.

"I got the Prima Vista unhooked," he reported.

"Good," said Blank, "now we just gotta make sure that everyone is on the ship."  
  


"Good luck," said Benero appearing behind them from the cargo bay's doorway, "I can't find Ruby." Blank swore, but not as loudly as Baku's shouted orders. 

"Get ter work, fools!" the large man hollered, throwing off the robes from the play, "I told her ter get off the ship. It's too dangerous if the Queen decides to attack and she will."

"But Boss!" Cinna yelled, stepping forward. Baku just held up a hand, silencing him.

"Brahne never saw Ruby, so if she sees 'er now she won't know she's from Tantalus."

"But-" Blank started.

"We'll come back fer her," Baku finished, "but we gotta get outta here. Nero brothers! Make sure the band get into the cargo bay! Blank, check the Mist engines! Cinna, you come with me."

Blank took off immediately for the planning room, throwing himself down the hatch hole when he arrived there. Blank tore across the boiling engine room, feeling like a cooked turkey as he checked dials. Zooming back again he climbed up the rope for the third time and flew to the storage room, around the corner and up the spiral stairs the bridge, hearing upon his ascent the voice of Cinna saying, "Stabilizers configured!" and Baku's voice answering "Good!"  
  
"Engine room is good to go!" Blank huffed out, when he arrived at the cockpit.

   
"Alright!" Baku answered, turning around the to steering wheel and pointing forward, "We're movin' out!  
  
"Roger that!" Blank replied, and turned back down the stairs. He crouched at the bottom of the stairs as the ship began to ascend, and then got up again to head towards the stage. He was shocked to find himself thrown forward when the ship jerked and several harpoons shot into the Prima Vista, rocking the airship and throwing wood everywhere. Outside he could hear people screaming and buildings being smashed as the Prima vista swayed dangerously close to the ground. They were struggling to move forward, which meant the harpoons were tethered to the cannons. All around Blank tumbling timber showered down, and he took off up the stairs again as Cinna and Baku were holding on for dear life, Baku turning the wheel hard to the left. Blank shot up the stairs further only to trip over as the ship rocked again, some of the harpoons and chains coming loose. Making to the top was only achieved by the time Benero and Zenero had joined him at the top lookout of the Prima Vista. 

Looking around they only had time to witness a fiery Bomb growing to the last of its exploding size before Blank threw himself on the floorboards screaming "TAKE COVER!!!"

The agitated creature burst into flames as it exploded on the stage every of the ship, rocking it dangerously and sending towers of smoke shooting and wisps of fire everywhere to take place among the timber exterior of the ship. A cloud of smoke and ash engulfed the Prima Vista for a short moment until it flew out, free of chains but fire and smoke emanating from everywhere.

Blank uncovered his head as he looked around himself, realizing they were sailing out away from the castle city of Alexandria, but his spirits sank when he felt himself descending with the ship below the Mist clouds.  

The ship was losing power, and…

   
"We're gonna crash!!!" shouted Cinna as Blank flew down the stairs pass him and Baku. 

Blank was thrown forward for possibly the forth time that night when the ship housed another explosion, and was saved from witnessing their fiery crash to the ground as he was in midair in no time, hitting a wall and finding himself knocked unconscious.

Next Chapter - Blank Purpose.

~QueenQeeko


	4. Blank Purpose

Disclaimer: 

Okay, this sucks like hell.

Final Fantasy IX belongs to SquareSoft and not to me.

I make no money from this fanfic; I'm just a miserable excuse for a living existence who gets creative using Square's FF characters.

So this time it's about Blank, who doesn't belong to me either.

By QueenQeeko.

**The Blank Impression.**

Chapter 4 - Blank Purpose.

If anything was going to wake Blank up after smashing his head into a wall, it would be fire creeping ever closer around him. A stray flame picked up on a few hairs on his dead-weighted arm, and then he was on his feet patting it out. Confusion flooded Blank's system as he took in his surroundings and the situation with it, and he didn't like it. Flying up the spiral stairs among the tongues of fire he ran to Baku, whom himself looked fine if only a bit shaken.

"Boss! There's fire everywhere! It's outta control!" Blank cried, barely remaining anything close to calm.

"Quit yer whinin' and get it under control!" was Baku's reply. "And get the wounded outta here!"

"Alright!" Blank answered, and yet again shot down the staircase. His senses were on overloads as his climbing feelings of panic swept back and forth over him. The fire would have to wait as Blank shouted to the Nero brothers to evacuate the wounded which mostly comprised of the orchestral band. Some of them were healthy enough to help drag their friends and comrades out of the blazing theater ship. Blank tirelessly raced around the many rooms of the ship, throwing buckets of water from the water stores onboard onto various patches of fire. Each of the Tantalus members hurried around, the bandits desperately trying to save their ship and crew.  

_'The flames are endless!'_ he thought miserably, dunking the bucket into the huge water barrel again for another burnt wall. He brushed past Cinna as the pot-bellied teen carried another band member over his head towards the Prima Vista's exit. 

"Hurry up and put out the fire! I can't carry 'em all by myself!" Blank faintly heard Cinna shout from outside a moment later. 

"Stupid ass," Blank growled as he doused another flaming floor, "I'm going as fast as I can."

"Bro!" Marcus' voice came next, and Blank turned to his brother as he appeared through another doorway, "Bro! What's happenin' with that fire?"

"I'm tryin' to put out the whole freakin' ship by myself! What's it look like?!" Blank snapped. "Where the hell is Zidane? I need some help here!"

"I dunno, I haven't seen him since we took off. Cinna said something about him leapin' off the ship," Marcus answered, following Blank as he returned to the water barrel, "and we can't find the princess anywhere either."

"What?!" Blank screamed. "You sayin' that we've lost her already? Sheez!"

"I'm 'fraid so," said Marcus as he grabbed a bucket as well and scooped out some water for the adjacent wall.

"What the hell d'ya think you're doin'?" Blank shouted as he dash out again to put out more fires, Marcus at his heels. They both dumped the water onto the wall, looking through a doorway to find a whole room with its floor ablaze.

"I'm helpin' you put out the fire, ya fool!" Marcus snapped back as he went back to the barrel. Blank returned to find Marcus placing the lid on the half full barrel and started pushing it towards the fiery room. Blank caught on and went to Marcus' side. They stood the barrel up at the doorway and removing the lid, tipped the barrel over and doused the whole floor. 

"How're we doin'?" they heard Baku shout from somewhere towards the stage end of the theater ship. Blank cast his psychic gaze towards his surroundings. The last room that was burning was the planning room, and then Blank would have to check the engine room below.

"We got another three to go, I think!" he shouted, and went back to work, "Marcus, we gotta search for Garnet while we do this!. Marcus followed him back as they retrieved more water.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The last fires were extinguished finally; Blank leant against a charred wall of the hall and expelled an exhausted sigh.

"At least that's taken care of," Marcus muttered, flexing a strained bicep muscle. 

"Tell me about it…" Blank murmured, just as the section of wall behind him decided to crumble, and Blank found himself laying in a pile of burnt wall rubble.

"No need to, you saw it yourself," Marcus grinned, and sat down by his brother. 

"I guess…" Blank groaned. "So has anyone seen that princess yet? Because I haven't."

"Not a glimpse," Cinna answered as he entered from an adjacent room, "lots of us have already been lookin' for her in and outside of the ship. Nothin' so far."

"Oh joy," Blank grumbled, moving himself to a more stable section of wall. Cinna scratched his head for a moment.

"Well that's not all," he mumbled, and then spoke clearer," we also can't find that little black mage, or the crazy knight guy. Zidane took off to find the princess as well."

"Meh, the knight don't matter, but I kinda feel sorry for the kid," Marcus expressed, "he got caught up in our mess because those blasted knights were chasin' him around." When Marcus received no response from neither Cinna nor Blank, he turned to his right and peered at Blank's face. The poor guy had fallen asleep from fatigue. 

For Blank, a chance to get some sleep was bliss. His dreams were the only times and places for him to _see_. In his dreams, he could see images, he could still understand what things looked like. 

His dreams right there was showing him sitting in the corner of a dark room, one of the burnt rooms of the Prima Vista. His own image intrigued his subconscious curiosity. There were stitches all over his body. He looked at his own hand, seeing through the eyes of his self as he sat in the corner. He wore brown gloves.

Such interest and fascination wasn't even obvious to himself as he studied his gloved hand in the darkness. The soft, worn brown leather, the tussled Mu fur at the wrist, and the neat stitching… Much neater stitching than of what scars left behind on his mismatched skin, sewn when…

_"You!"_ shouted a voice. He looked up at the form of the captain of those knights.

_"Get up and find her!"_ the captain shouted, and with that he ran off, the clanking sound echoing upon the charred walls. He looked back down and stood immediately, no second thoughts for the armor that had just replaced his normal clothes, and he ran out of the room into the rest of a burning ship that opened out into the burning halls of a castle. The building was a hazy furnace and he just ran. No direction was known. He just ran. The fire had no heat, and as soon as he reached a doorway out of the structure, he stepped out onto an empty stage.   

He blinked. The cold air there was pressing on him, grasping his body. The stage was dead with a setup of an icy back alley. He brought up his newly gloveless hands to his stained, oversized T-shirt, no armor to be seen. He felt so cold. How did he get this small? The floor was so close, the room larger. Everything was so big compared to a child like him. He looked back down at his hands. 

He realized he could see his hands. He could see. His hands were sore. They were newly stitched, mismatched skin healing together. He examined his hands with wonder, with intrigue for the strange appendages. He knew not of his own curiosity for the hands in front of him. After a moment, he brought one hand to his face and felt the skin. He could feel stitches and mismatched skin. It was wet with a hot thick liquid. Peering at his fingers, they were coated in a red substance. And he caught a sliver of light in the dark. 

Instantly he spun around to the light. It was something in the doorway of the stage exit to the dressing room. The light was reflecting off the small section of a mirror that was exposed from under a large dusty covering. He stared at it for minutes on end in a daze. Finally, he crept forward, gripping the corner of the veil gently and casting it off. It came away with a cloud of dust, and before him he beheld his reflection. The face of a green-eyed child with reddish brown hair, shoulder length and slightly tossed. A muddy oversized T-shirt and small dark shorts. A body under it all of clear perfect skin, slightly tanned. 

He felt short of breath as he stared at the reflection of himself, two green eyes filled with confusion. But something about the mirror seemed odd… He edged closer. On closer inspection the mirror appeared to have a crack in it, and it fell diagonally just across the cheek and top of the forehead of his reflection. No sooner had this been discovered that the crack ripped all the way along the mirror the whole thing shattered with an ear piercing sound. He leapt back as the shards of the glass split and broke upon the floorboards. An inch from his foot, a single large shard reflected back up at him. But staring into the image on the loose piece, he began to breathe faster as his heart beat harder. The reflection was him, but not of the him he stood as. The image showed himself with tears pouring down his face, and his whole body was bleeding from the fresh stitching all over him.

He looked to another piece; it held an image of his right eye changing to blue and back to green, back and forth until the image grabbed at his face and scream. He heard the sound to accompany the vision, and he looked back to the first shard. The image on him in it was kneeling and crying in anguish as he held himself, blood dripping slowly to the black void flooring. Another shard; the stitching was taking place upon his torn skin. Another shard; eye drops to his right eye. Another shard; being thrown into a brink wall in a back alley at night. Another shard; a mangled bloody body lying on a dark cobble stoned street. Another shard; the face in darkness, but blood dripping down onto a test subject shirt. 

A real scream filled the air, and he spun around to face the same mirror. The same single crack in the glass and his reflection, the scarred stitched body, the tossed reddish brown hair. The right eye unfocused and useless stared blank into nothing, and the other wasn't there, just a swollen bloody injury. He shut his eyes in disgust, but when he opened them again, he couldn't see.

He screamed.

"Blank!" 

"Hungh?"

"Blank, wake up dammit!"  

A sharp pain that appeared in Blank's left shin woke him out of the dream, and he groggily turned his attention up above him.

"About time, Blank!" shouted an anxious Zidane who was cradling the limp body of a young black mage. Behind him Marcus and Benero were struggling to hold up the also unconscious Steiner of the Pluto Knights. 

"What the hell?!" Blank exclaimed as he jumped up and directed them into the cargo room. "What did you do to these guys?" 

"I didn't do anythin'!" Zidane snapped as he laid the mage upon the rug. Marcus and Benero dropped the knight without being too gentle. Blank looked the two bodies over.

"They've been covered with seeds," he muttered, turning to his monkey-tailed brother, "how'd it happen?" 

"I heard from Cinna that the princess was missing so I went scoutin' the area incase she ran off," Zidane explained as Blank dashed off into the planning room and returning with three glass potion bottles, "I found her and these two being attacked by one of the forest's plantish Mist monster guys, and it had her in its tentacles. It ran off with her but before we could go after it another came down and got Vivi."

"Who's Vivi?" Blank asked quizzically. Zidane gave him a pained looked. 

"This little guy!" he burst out, pointing at the coughing black mage, "anyways, after me and Rusty here killed it, it let out this cloud of spores. It got these two, so I had to drag 'em back. That knight's really heavy!"

"I wouldn't doubt that," Blank chuckled, and with that he held the nose of the knight and opened his mouth. Into the gaping mouth and throat he poured a purple potion his had just mixed, and then he went about making another one. 

"Benero, that potion will remove the seeds from this retard's body, make sure he drinks this one when he wakes up, so he doesn't get too disorientated," Blank instructed, and handed over a purple bottle of brown liquid. Turning his attention back to the black mage, Blank scratched his head.

"I won't be able to help this one until he's awake," he murmured.

"Why? Can't find his mouth?" Zidane joked, and ducked as Marcus swung a fist playfully at his head. Blank didn't answer. Instead he lifted the young mage from the ground and headed out towards the hallway, into the staircase room and through a door to the ship's bedroom. Vivi coughed again as Blank laid him down upon Marcus' bed, and found himself a section of wall to lean against. Well, two out of three missing peoples found, but the princess was the important one. The plant that had carried her away would have to be hunted after, but Baku would not likely allow a rescue mission unless it had probable chances for success. Zidane, being how he was, certainly wouldn't take those kinds of orders to happily. 

Blank shifted as he heard a bit of racket going on a few rooms away. Perhaps that knight was waking up. In his weakened state he'd be no match for the Nero brothers of course, but Blank couldn't help but wonder as Steiner had already proved to be both obsessed with the princess and stubborn. Obviously too loyal to the Throne for his own good. And then Blank turned his thoughts back to the mage that was making small gurgling noises. Blank had no idea where this kid had come from. This was the first time Vivi had been in Blank's presence, and he wondered if maybe the young mage had either snuck onboard the Prima Vista or maybe that it was the work of the Pluto Knights. Yeah, he was mixed up in the problems they faced now. Blank didn't know why he had not thought about it before that moment. A dangerous forest outside Alexandria; Evil Forest. Appropriate name, since now they were probably screwed.

"Eugh…" 

"Hmm?" Blank returned to Vivi's side as the young mage started to wake, gagging as he did so. "You alright there?" Vivi spluttered a little and tried to give him an answer.

"I f-feel sick…" he murmured, "and I can't move…"

"Yeah, I thought as much, what with your little misadventure out into Evil Forest," Blank smirked, and Vivi blinked at him.

"…Really?" he asked. Blank nodded.

"You guys are lucky. If it weren't for Zidane, you'd both be dead," he informed the young mage, "some of the monsters in this forest reproduce by planting seeds in other animals. And when the seeds sprout, it's hasta la vista: you become beef jerky."

"Um... A-Am I gonna die?" Vivi asked nervously. Blank gave him a lopsided grin.

"No. You're gonna be fine," he said, "here, drink this. It'll remove all the seeds from your body." Vivi tipped his head forward as Blank offered the bottle. Blank thanked himself for deciding to wait as the mage drank with no trouble. Although of course he didn't like the taste. 

"Ugh...eeyuck..." Vivi muttered after taking a generous mouthful and swallowing it.

"Yeah, I know, but it'll save your life," Blank answered the complaint with a smile, and helped Vivi drink the rest of it. Once the bottle was empty Blank changed the bottle for another purple one like he gave to Benero for Steiner.

"Does that one taste bad too?" Vivi ventured to ask.

"Try it and see," Blank suggested, and as Vivi did so, the potion disappeared a lot faster. Vivi hiccoughed and then looked like he wanted to sleep, so Blank returned to his wall. The kid seemed nice enough, a little shy, but nice all the same. He was more than likely scared really, being in a strange place and all. As long as they were all kind to him there shouldn't be any complications. Still, how they were going to get out of Evil Forest was beyond Blank. Even if they were all at full strength, the band had no fighting ability, and that in itself would hinder their traveling out. Perhaps they could utilize the skills of a mage? 

"…ABANDON HER!?" screamed a panicked voice from the hallway, and Blank was reminded of the knight. Perhaps if they could get him to cooperate, then Steiner could help fight off the Mist monsters as well.

"Um…" came Vivi's small voice again. Blank didn't respond other than turning his head towards the child. "Who are you guys?"

"Us?" Blank asked in turn. He scratched his head as he tried to figure out how to answer. "We're thieves actually." The reaction was a little alarming. Vivi instantly leaped over the side of the bed and tried to hide under it. Blank immediately felt rather stupid. 

"Hey, hang on a sec! We're not bad guys!" he explained, throwing up his hands in a harmless manner. "Yeah, we're thieves but we don't go hurtin' people! We just try to make a few bob and only take from the nobles anyway!" At this a gurgle came out from under the bed, followed by a pointy hat and soon Vivi poked his head out. He stared at Blank for a moment and thought, and finally decided to emerge fully.

"Is that why Mr. Zidane saved me?" he asked timidly.

"Of course it is! We're not heartless y'know! We're also a theater group!" Blank told him. "Call us Tantalus; thieves or actors that's who we are. We _will_ give out a helpin' hand to those that need it."

"Oh…" mumbled Vivi, who then crawled back up onto the bed with a sigh. Silence followed, and Blank was about to excuse himself out to avoid the awkwardness when Vivi's voice surfaced again. "Sorry."

"It's okay, kid. I should have explained that all before to ya. I'm Blank," Blank smiled to Vivi who dropped his gaze to the floor.

"Where is Mr. Zidane?"

"I dunno. Why?"

"…I just wanted to say thanks…"

"Well if I see him, I'll send 'im straight over."

Blank found his chance to escape as Vivi nodded, lay down and rolled over. Blank swiftly left the room, and took up the wall space beside the closed door. He felt bad for upsetting Vivi, but knew that it would pass between them. Still, he couldn't help but wonder about the kid. He was quite obviously very alone, and being a mage he would have magic, but that wasn't to say that he would be ridiculously powerful, although still useful. Perhaps, if the kid had nowhere to go and the Boss liked him, Vivi could join Tantalus?

Pushing that thought aside, Blank placed his attention on the form of Zidane, marching across the floorboards towards him with his tail flicking from side to side. Blank knew from experience that this behavior meant that Zidane had just received the short end of a stick. And quite normally this stemmed from the orders of Baku. Thankfully Zidane was one that didn't take it out on others, and as he approached the door he looked up at Blank who in turn nodded to him.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   "I gave that black mage some medicine," he told his monkey-tailed brother, "I think he wants to talk to you." Zidane, rather than go straight in stared at Blank for a while, making the blind teen somewhat uncomfortable. Blank let Zidane scrutinize him for a few minutes, until finally getting fed up and pushed himself away from the wall.

"What's wrong? Why are you so fidgety?" he asked resolutely. "Sit back and relax. We ain't goin' anywhere for a while." He gave his brother a comforting pat on the shoulder and made his way across the room and out through the doorway. He didn't bother waiting to see if Zidane would either follow him or enter the bedroom, nor did Blank care. 

He, like many people around the world, was a individual in his own right, and this meant that while the brothers of Tantalus were a pack of goofy thieves, Blank still had a renown trait for mood swings. His mood for now floated into the vicinity of thoughtful pessimism. By all means it had nothing to do with Zidane being moody, but with no one else to talk to Blank was forced to address the problem of escaping Evil Forest again. Blank didn't recall Baku saying if he himself had ever been in or around Evil Forest before, yet he certainly knew enough about it to give the Tantalus brothers all nightmares as children. But scary bedtime stories aside, really, had anyone ever escaped before? Baku wasn't the only one convinced that no one had ever survived, so was Blank now being hopeful? Or was he in denial of the truth? What denial? He hadn't even come close to believing they could make it. But did that mean that they might as well feed themselves to Mist monsters now?

The blind thief sighed and leant against a wall, as was his usual habit, and busied himself with dusting the ash and charcoal out of the Mu fur on his gloves. Curious enough, Ruby was the one that gave these gloves to Blank, a week later saying she didn't know why she wasted her money on him. But indeed, Blank felt bad that they'd left her behind. After all, she was their sister…sorta. Blank and Ruby got along like a pair of common siblings that didn't want to be anywhere near each other most of the time. Cinna's relationship with her wasn't much better, but he often found something else to keep himself entertained. Zidane so far had always gotten along with Ruby in a positive way, the kind of brother and sister that really cared about each other. But then Marcus…

Another sigh escaped Blank as he thought of his brother. Ten to one, Marcus was probably thinking of Ruby right at that moment. Blank had noticed over the last two years in particular that Marcus had taken a different kind of liking towards Ruby, and this was beyond the love of a sibling. In fact, the fact the Marcus still appeared to acknowledge Ruby as a sister was a cover up that was easy to see by anyone other than Cinna. 

Blank half jumped when a huge thud sounded through the surfaced he leant on, and then a groan followed from behind the barrier. Blank checked his surroundings. He had apparently chosen to rest against the door of the very storeroom holding Steiner prisoner, and more likely than not, the knight had just rammed the door in another attempt at escape. Well, Blank thought, good luck. Even if Steiner did break free from the captivity of the Prima Vista he'd only have to then deal with Evil Forest itself. Not a smart thing, and while still a gruesome demise Blank found the image somewhat amusing somehow. Amusing until the door shook and vibrated again as the knight threw himself into it. The thief leaning upon said door decided to abandon the site. He barely walked two feet from the door when a voice caught him and stopped him in his tracks.

"Bro, you're doing it again."

"Marcus, you're stalking me again."

Marcus laughed at Blank's reply and stepped up from the staircase where he had been sitting observing his brother. 

"The Boss is really angry with Zidane," Marcus informed him, the humor dropping from his voice. 

"Thought as much," Blank replied, regrettably, and with a hint of bitterness, "what for this time?"

"Apparently, Zidane called him a coward and stormed off. Y'know the Boss hates being called a coward of any kind."

"Yeah, I know, so why hasn't he just knocked Zidane up for it?"

"Because he can't afford him to be injured if we're gonna try and get outta here," Marcus scratched his head and found a section of stairwell railing to dust ash off, "or so he says."

"Yeah, fancy big Baku of Tantalus gettin' his feelings hurt," Blank sniggered and then turned serious again, something he had been doing too much of as of late. "Actually, where is the Boss?" 

Marcus snorted. "He's fallen asleep in the planning room," he said, "got bored waitin' around for somethin'" This made Blank think a moment, and with a casual wave to his fanged brother returned to the room of the stairwell. And quite fortunately he found just the person he wanted to see.

"...There you are," Blank muttered upon approaching Zidane, who, at that point decided to run straight up to him. Blank frowned and studied his monkey-tailed brother.

"Why do you look so serious?" Blank asked, and as Zidane stared at him, he somewhat realized he was up to something. "Uh-oh... What are you up to this time?" 

"I'm gonna take that knight and the black mage to find the princess," Zidane replied completely serious about it. In a ridiculous mental back flip Blank scowled at him with an air of 'I think you're an idiot.'

"You're crazy! Man, you don't even know what's out there," Blank cried, getting back to the depressing thought that the forest may house their forever unknown and unvisited graves. When Zidane simply gave an uncaring shrug, Blank followed up with another reason why he should abandon the rescue mission. "Besides, there's no way the Boss'll allow that."

"I know..." Zidane said quietly. Blank shook his head. There had been many times that he had put up with this sort of behavior and many more times that Baku didn't. Blank sighed an exasperated sigh.

"Sheez... Why do you always gotta go play hero? The Boss is gonna kill you," he informed him very factually. Zidane looked down and scuffed at the floor with the toe of his shoe. Blank was worried about this. He was sure enough he had most if not all of their immediate dangers sorted out and accepted, and was hoping very much that Zidane was aware of them too. Blank swallowed a lump in his throat. He knew what was going to happen, and turned away from his brother.

"Well, what are you waiting for? Go talk to the Boss," Blank told him quietly, and didn't pursue him as Zidane exited the room and went off to find Baku. Blank stayed there for a moment, and simply thought hollow thoughts. In fact, he didn't really think very much, rather he stood and contemplated the one thought so much he wasn't conscious to the fact he doing it. The thought that he continued to address was of course Zidane, and Blank felt that he was having a hard time to dealing with it. He wasn't really prepared for Zidane to walk out on Tantalus again, but even worse was now, considering the extremely hazardous situation they were all in, Blank felt it best to punch a wall. 

"…Fool!" he hissed as a section of timber wall splintered under his hand. He didn't want Zidane to run out to his death, even if it was for that blasted princess. As far as Blank was concerned, no princess was worth more than any of his brothers. He spun on his heel and raced through the ship, unlocked the door to Steiner's prison, and swept through towards the planning room, pass the drummer and the violinist and was about to charge straight for the door when he skidded to a halt at the sounds of voices.

"-for breakin' the rules."

"...Alright."

"Okay, get your butt over to the cargo room. We got more room there."

_'Shit!'_ Blank thought, his mind ready to snap when he realized what was happening. He slid his body up to press against the wall. Through the doorway came Baku, followed by a slightly rigid Zidane. As Blank relaxed himself he quickly tensed up again as Baku drew his sword.

"You ready!?" Baku asked Zidane in a confident tone.

"Anytime!" Zidane replied back, with the same self-sure tone and Blank bit his lip. Blank had hoped the fight wasn't going to proceed, but as Baku cried, "I ain't holdin' back!" Blank was dismayed to find that Baku was true to his word. 

He caught the first strike on Zidane, smacking him over the head with the flat of his blade and returning to his position with a "Gwahahahaha!" Zidane in turn snapped his weapons out true and nipped in for an attack with speed, unfortunately missing his large target.

"Yer gotta do better than that!" shouted Baku as he leaped forward to belt Zidane again. Blank hung his head down as the leader of Tantalus tripped over his own feet and fell flat on his face. Zidane took the opportunity to slice at Baku while the large man was dizzy, and this time the attack connected. The fight continued on. Yes, Blank thought, it was a fight. They were going to slay each other before the Forest did, and the two went on exchanging blows without care. It escalated to a point where, after an up swung sword blade to the chest from Baku, Zidane fell back and knelt on the ground. Blank just about jumped in before they killed each other when Zidane dashed out and dealt an equally painful assault to Baku. The man stood and watched him, before waving a hand and saying, "Okay, that's enough."

Blank felt it safer to step out into the open room now that the two weren't swinging weapons, and examined Zidane from a short distance away.

"I'll be damned...Bravo!" Baku muttered thoughtfully, before stepping forward and landing a punch to Zidane in the gut. Zidane almost gasped but held it. Baku grinned. "Go find your princess!" Baku then turned and headed into the instrument storage room, laughing loudly as he went. Blank turned his attention back to Zidane who chose that moment to sink to the floor.

"Damn, that hurt! He pulled his punches 'til that last one," Zidane groaned, his tail flicking from side to side. He approached Blank, who had a slightly impressed look on his face.

"Way to go Zidane," he said in congratulations, "I unlocked the door to storage, so you're free to talk to that knight. Zidane nodded and went straight towards the instrument storage room hallway. Personally, Blank was relieved. At least they didn't harm each other too much but still, it meant that Zidane was going to be leaving them. Blank quietly crossed the rug and floorboards towards the planning room. It was probable that when (or more like if) Zidane did end up finding Princess Garnet, she would be covered with the reproduction seeds of the Mist monster plants.

He searched the overturned chests in the room for glass bottles and potion ingredients, sitting on the floor and mixing a potion when he'd found everything he needed. Garnet would need the seed remover potion but it probably wouldn't matter if she received the stabilizer or not. Blank set to work, mixing the purple goop and returning all his tools to their rightful places. But again, that feeling of dread followed him. He soon found his feet dragging him towards the hallway pass the cargo room, and Blank decided to agree with himself and go outside. He was mildly amused to see Cinna running around, scratching his head and every now and then stopping to sit on the bluish grass and scratch his head some more. The Nero brothers were watching with interest.

"Lost somethin', Cinna?" Blank asked with a lopsided grin. 

"Yeah! Can't believe I hauled all this stuff outside and the one thing I left to burn was my Garnet doll!" Cinna cried, looking truly annoyed. Blank laughed but nonetheless was sympathetic towards him.

"You can always buy a new one," Blank suggested, and decided to enlighten Cinna of what had been going on, considering the pot-belied teen had being hanging around outside for the past hour, "Zidane's leaving us again."

Cinna gibbered.

"He's what?" Cinna asked. "Why's he doin' that?"

"Because he wants to find the princess. He's takin' the crazy knight and the little black mage with him too," Blank informed him, "kinda feel sorry for the mage."

"No kiddin'," Cinna murmured, rubbing his forehead in a thoughtful way, "so he's gonna go rescue her and find his own way out of here?"

"Somethin' like that; he already beat the Boss."

"Huh?! And I missed it? Aww damn." 

Blank chuckled, and then sat down by Cinna and simply enjoyed the silence while they had it. Blank was mildly intrigued about the silence since they hadn't been attacked during their stay in the Evil Forest. Both teens just sat and remained occupied with separate, yet unbeknownst to each other, similar thoughts. Some of Blank's thoughts included the Prima Vista's demise. They'd all only had it for a few years and already come to know it as though it were a second home. Now it was just attractive firewood. Another thought was whether they would live to see Ruby again, followed by the thought of whether would they live to see light again. Then there was Zidane's leaving, and since this was the first time they knew why he was leaving, it was especially hard to let him have his way. Zidane was very much a—

"Brat…" Cinna murmured, finishing Blank's thought. In turn the blind thief boggled at the statement as the pot-bellied teen next to him picked his oversized teeth with a splinter of wood. 

"Trust Zidane to go off in pursuit of a princess. Show-Off," Cinna mumbled, somewhat amused yet critically. 

"Yeah?" Blank asked, raising an eyebrow under his headbelt. 

"Yeah. He never needs a reason to run to someone's rescue, he takes off anyway; so when Zidane _does_ have a reason he just can't be stopped, y'know what I mean?"

Somehow, this brought a smirk to Blank's face.

"Yeah, I know what ya mean. The young lad is too stubborn." 

This, however, brought a frown to Cinna's face.

"Whaddya mean, 'young lad'? I'm only two months younger than him and you're only a year older than us," Cinna snapped indignantly. Blank put on a lopsided grin and a squeaky Moogle voice that would get most people a punch in the nose.

"Then I guess that makes you the brattiest brat of us all." 

Cinna swiped a fist at him and Blank took off with a wave after ducking under Cinna's paw. The pot-bellied teen just snorted and went back to cleaning out his teeth. Blank, feeling in a slightly better mood for his little bit of Cinna teasing, returned to the corridor just inside the Prima Vista's entrance. He figured if he wanted to help Zidane out, he might as well hang around and wait for him to pass by. Rightfully, that event shouldn't be too far away, considering it required very little brainpower to obtain two traveling buddies. Blank sighed though. Sure would have been nice to have a red mage in Tantalus, some magic would be great. All alright for Zidane, yeah, he had a black mage going with him. All right for him with his little rescue group to set out and find a damsel in distress. Tantalus was obligated to kidnap Princess Garnet Til Alexandros, heir to the throne of Alexandria, but not at the cost of their own lives; that was just lunacy.

Blank had leant on the wall for about fifteen minutes before Zidane passed through the cargo room door on his own and walked towards the exit. Blank noted this and thought that perhaps the mage and the knight had declined going with him.

"Sheez... you really dig her, huh?" Blank asked dryly, acknowledging that Zidane would still go through with rescuing the princess even on his own. Zidane, who had hitherto not noticed Blank leaning upon the charred and ruined walls turned to him and shrugged.

"I can't sit around knowing a girl's in trouble," he admitted honestly yet casually, "goes against my nature."

"Whatever. You're full of crap," was Blank's dismissal of his monkey-tailed brother's motivation.

"Ohhh.... I get it," Zidane laughed at Blank, "you're jealous that I'm gonna get me a sweetie pie." Blank damn near threw a chunk of stone at him.

"Pshhh... She's not even my type," Blank scoffed, and thought that if Zidane was going to be cocky about his mission Blank may as well get rid of him, taking out the potion he had mixed previously, "I came down here to give you this."

"You're always thinking about me...but I won't need a love potion to reel this one in." 

"Why don't you get your mind off girls for a second? This is medicine I gave to that black mage and the knight. It's sort of like a seed remover."

"Cool. This'll really come in handy," Zidane said, taking the glass bottle and strapping the neck of it to his belt.

"Why am I always helping you...?" Blank asked himself more than anyone really. Zidane on the other hand, just grinned and waved while playing the part of the idiot.

"Thanks, Blank. I'll see you when I see you," he said, and with a salute he walked out of the Prima Vista for what would be the last time.

"How about never?" Blank muttered. It was quite amazing how quickly Zidane could irritate someone, and invariably it was Blank that received it. He harrumphed and took a deep breath. He was about ready to move again when Vivi and Steiner stepped through the doorway and followed Zidane out, Vivi giving Blank a friendly wave and Steiner giving Blank a hateful glare. They disappeared, and Blank scratched his head. 

_'Okay,'_ Blank thought, _'I stand corrected, maybe Zidane isn't **that** alone.' _Still, it did little to improve his mood. Blank halfheartedly wondered if anyone else had bothered to pursue an escape plan. So far, Blank was yet to hear a rational decision to the next move, and even if one had been made there was no guarantee it would work. Just as well perhaps, Blank mused, and turned away from the wall he was facing and instead ended up with his back to the entry door of the cargo room. That was something else he'd have to get used to. Without the Prima Vista for traveling between cities and towns, life would be a lot more complicated.

First of all, treks between Lindblum and Alexandria would be A) More dangerous, B) Longer journeys, and C) A pain in the ass. They were just a few things that bothered Blank, but he didn't let it bother him too much. After all, rather than whining about getting more exercise, they still had the task at hand. And everything single time Blank got him self back to that same topic, that same 'well back to getting out of here' topic, he felt it being increasingly hopeless.

The fact the orchestral band decided to start playing some upbeat parade music right about that moment did little to improve Blank's frame of mind. 

_'Great, so now we'll just give the Mist monsters a sound signal to direct them to our location? Oh yes, very clever…'_ Blank thought dismally. As they played, Blank considered the option of heading outside to where the Nero brothers and Cinna was and before the decision was made his feet were already carrying him towards the exit. Very soon, however, he found is feet somewhere above the floor and he was no longer going anywhere. He did, on the other hand, realize there was in fact a very large hand gripping the back of his neck and it was this, he deducted, what had prevented his leaving of the ship. The band continued to play.

"Are all my boys leavin'?" Baku asked, and when he received a blank look from Blank (of all people) he dropped the teen on the ground in a rather indifferent way and beckoned to him to follow outside. Blank had hardly dusted himself off when he was grabbed again and dragged towards the inside of the Prima Vista. He was uncomfortably sure he knew how Cinna's Garnet doll felt.  

"Won't all this ruddy music just lure the monsters straight here?" Blank shouted above the noise. Baku either didn't hear him or didn't care, and thus continued up the stairs and pass the storage room. Hauling Blank through the main room and receiving a puzzled look from Marcus as he ascended the stairs, Baku gave a final heave with little effort and successfully tossed Blank midair into the bedroom. Blank landed roughly and rolled a few feet until he came to a sudden stop against the wall.

"Alright, now I got somethin' for ya to do," Baku announced. Blank groaned. 

"Oh yeah? Why couldn't you just ask me to follow you?" he asked irritably upside-down from the floor. Baku smirked at him, and picking Blank up by the foot again lifted him above Marcus' bed and let go. He then produced a map from somewhere behind his back.

"I've been tryin' to figure out a few ways to get outta this forest," Baku informed him, "and while I'm doin' that I want you to take a look at this." Blank twisted his upper body around until he heard a satisfying crack, and expelled a sigh. He proceeded to do the same with his neck, shaking his head afterwards and turning back to Baku.

"Come again?

Baku told him again. Blank took the map from Baku and unrolled it. It was a map of Evil Forest. He babbled slightly.

"How long have you had this?" he demanded, none too politely. "We could had started plannin' our way out of here long ago!"

"Didn't know I had it," came Baku's explanation, "one of the boys must have picked it up in their travels, because I only discovered it a little while ago." The music from the band, much to Blank's delight, ended at the same time Baku's sentence did, and he ran his fingers over the map. It was old, and it had a generous number of tears and bloodstains on it. Whatever crazy bastard would hang around in Evil Forest long enough to draw the details of the forest was a lucky man indeed to make it out alive with this thing, Whether he or she was alive now, mattered not to Blank. 

"Boss…" he started quietly, earning him the attention of his adoptive father, "did you look this over much?"

"Naw, why?"

"There's a stream, or a river near here…"

"What about it?"

"…We could use it to escape."

"…"

"…"

"…MARCUS!!" 

Marcus appeared at the doorway almost instantly, huffing and wheezing and leaning on the door, wearing an expression on his face that meant he though he was in for it.

"Yeah?" he ventured to ask, and Baku waved him into the room. 

"Take a look a that map that Blank has there," Baku ordered him.  Marcus shrugged and stepped heavily over to Blank, who in turn handed the beaten parchment to his brother. Marcus scanned the map, his brow wrinkled with thought, and before long he raised his eyes to Blank, and then looked at Baku over his shoulder. 

"I'll round up Cinna and the Nero brothers and get started on a raft," he stated. Baku nodded resolutely. Marcus pushed the map into Blank's hands and took off out of the room, hollering as he went about something to do with freedom. Blank really couldn't believe luck had fallen into his lap for once. If there was a river then there was a way it would lead out of the forest, and if that was the case, then they were saved. Blank almost kissed the map he held. 

"I'll go search the area and report back if it's not gonna work," Blank declared, walking passed Baku and handing the map back to him. Blank was about two feet out of the room when Baku stopped him.

"No ya not, I'm gonna go look around. I want you to go find Zidane," Baku told him.

"Say what?" Blank asked in turn. Baku let him go and looked at him thoughtfully, and then let a sigh escape him.

"I want ya to go with Zidane. I'm sick of the brat runnin' off the way he does, because I never know if he's gonna come back or not," Baku explained truthfully, "I know that if another of you boys went wit' him he might do better, so ya can watch each other's backs." Blank dropped his head down a little and considered it. True. It was very true. He didn't want to let Zidane go again either, but he didn't know about leaving Tantalus alone… Of course, it wasn't like he wasn't going to be part of Tantalus anymore, like Zidane had done today, but still. Making his decision, Blank lifted his head.

"Alright, if I have to," he muttered, not disrespectfully, but not exactly thrilled either, walking out of the room and along near the staircase.

"That's my boy," Baku sighed, ruffling Blank's hair as he followed him out.

"Are you sure about this?" Blank found himself asking, just checking again to be sure they weren't throwing themselves to the wolves. Or more correctly, throwing Blank to the Mist monsters. 

"Yeah, don't worry. We'll be outta here soon, too," Baku reassured him, producing another scroll from his belt, and handed it to the blind teen, "here, take _this_ map. It's gonna be a long trip back to Lindblum..."

"Alright. I'll see you later," Blank agreed, saluting in synch with Baku.

"I'm countin' on you!" Baku told him, and with that said and decided, Blank turned away just as Marcus was descending the stairs. Blank privately swore at himself, as he knew what was coming.

"Where are you going, Bro?" Marcus asked, completely unaware of their separating on the road that was to come. Blank mumbled and mishandled his sentences as he tried to come up with a reasonable explanation to his leaving, but wound up with none. Baku came to his rescue.

"I'm jes sendin' Blank along with Zidane," He said gently, looking Marcus in the eye. Marcus remained silent, but Blank could just feel his brother's anger building, especially since Marcus was the one that cared about the family the most, as well as being the Peace Keeper, the Voice of Reason and the clear thinker. 

"No, he's not," Marcus said simply, and for the first time in his life perhaps, was arguing with Baku's orders. Baku widened his stance. 

"I'm sending him along with Zidane," he said firmly.

"No, he's not," Marcus said even firmer, his sharp teeth showing as he bared them angrily. Now, Blank was faced with two options. He could very well take up Marcus' side and possibly get them both thrown out of Tantalus, or, he could agree with Baku and risk severing ties with Marcus. He was an easy to her person, if you were close to him, and hurting Marcus was something Blank wouldn't do. His decision was difficult to choose however, as both people had equally good reasons, he supposed, for wanting their way. Thinking of Zidane pushed Blank's thoughts to one side, and prepared himself as he knew he would regret opening his mouth.

"Marcus, it'll be fine," he reassured him, stepping up to his fanged brother's side and placing a hand on his shoulder, "I'm going to take a map to Zidane and we'll meet you guys back at Lindblum. Surely you don't want Zidane to leave again. What if he doesn't come back?"

"What if _you_ don't come back?" came Marcus' retort. Ah, Blank almost found himself caught. 

"Hey, it'll be alright!" Blank exclaimed, feigning confidence. "Have some faith in me! Isn't that right, Boss?" Blank turned to find that Baku had abandoned him to deal with the stubborn Marcus himself, and he inwardly cursed their father for dumping him in hot water.

"I don't want you to go," Marcus said obdurately, not looking at Blank. Blind or not, Blank found this hurtful.

"Marcus, c'mon… you know that some things have to be done…" he tried to reason. Marcus shook his head.

"Don't go, Bro. I got a really, terrible, bad, awful feelin' you shouldn't go," Marcus advised him. Blank opened his mouth, but then shut it again. What was he doing? Here was his best friend and his brother rolled into one person, the same person that he trusted above all people, and Blank was arguing with him. He didn't want to go and help Zidane anyway… sort of. No, Blank was lying to himself. He cared about Zidane too, and he'd do the same thing if Cinna, or Baku, or the Nero brothers were in Zidane's deadly situation. He'd _never_ hesitate if it were Marcus.

"Marcus… I can't ju-"

"Blank," Marcus said quietly, the use of his name instead of 'Bro' silencing him with significance, "please don't go out there. Ever since we were just kids, Zidane has always been takin' off and never tellin' us why or where he went. He could have died on any of those occasions and we'd never see him again. This time it's sheer suicide, and I'm just glad that he's got two strong allies." Marcus turned to Blank again, looking utterly miserable.

"We've left behind Ruby, we've let go of Zidane, and I won't lose _you_ either."

Blank had no idea what to say. He opened and closed his mouth a number of times, but he had nothing to counter with. He thought and scraped for reasons, but he felt truly torn apart. On one hand, to go after Zidane and possibly save his life. The other hand, Marcus' plead for him not to go. Blank and Marcus had done everything together since they were very little, and separating now was obviously a mental torture for Marcus. 

Blank felt a tear burning in his right eye under the headbelt, and soon found himself pulled into a tight brotherly embrace by Marcus as the older teen squeezed his own eyes shut.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ten minutes later saw Blank walking up into a clearing that was devoid of monster activity. This he found a relief as he had already encountered more than enough Fangs in his lifetime. The clearing had a fresh water spring in the center of it, and Blank made note to bottle some before he continued on. Blank searched the area briefly before discovering he wasn't as alone as he thought. 

"Kupo?" 

"…Hey."

"Kupo!" a small round creature, identifiable as a moogle, jumped out from where he had been hiding in a hollow tree stump, and ran up to Blank with many exclamations of "Kupo!"

"Yeah, yeah, kupo…" Blank mumbled, "listen, uh, can you tell me something?"

"Anything that I might know, kupo!" came the answer. Blank scratched his head and though for a moment, not really sure how to deal with the furry bouncing thing.

"Have you seen anyone go by at all? Y'know, like um…" he started uncertainly. The moogle instantly changed from happy-go-lucky to death-is-coming.

"I did! I did! A boy with a tail and a little black mage and a big rusty knight all came through here! They drank some water from that spring and then left!" the moogle cried, speaking as though the three people he had talked about were heading towards their doom.

"Really?" Blank demanded, "where did they go? Tell me!"

"They went that way!" answered the worried little moogle, pointing off deeper into the forest, "they went off towards the big Mist monster meanie plant thing!" Blank had little idea of what the moogle meant by that, other than it was really bad. 

He thanked the moogle briefly and took off along the path that had been freshly walked on. Five minutes along and he halted his flight to examine his surroundings. The forest was changing its mood, and Blank knew he was running out of time. He raced off again along the path, darting out of the way as Mist monsters began to multiply and appear from both sides. Blank continued to fumble through the forest as fast as his patchwork legs could carry him. 

_'Blank, how do you let yourself get into these messes?' _he thought to himself._ 'Correction, how do you let **Zidane** get you into these messes? Alone in the Evil Forest of all places, surrounded by God-knows-what, with knout but two Potions, a Phoenix Down and nothing to defend myself with but an iron sword. And why? To deliver a map to Zidane's dumb self so he can rescue a princess, the same princess that could have gotten us all killed!' _

Amidst his mumbling and rambling to himself Blank failed to notice a large up-growing root that was spread across his path. He tripped, flew through the air and landed face first into a gauss bush. A 'small' cry echoed through the otherwise silent forest.

"AAAAAAOOOOOOUUUUUCCCHHH!!!"

Blank pulled himself unceremoniously out of the gauss bush, brushed the prickles from his hair and continued on his trek at a painful and somewhat slower pace. Ten minutes of running turned up no sigh of Zidane or his party. Seconds before Blank was about to take off down a side path, a loud explosion erupted from somewhere ahead of Blank's original choice of destination. This was followed by another explosion and accompanied by a bellowing battle cry.

"For the princess and Alexandria!" went the shout. Blank hastened to the place of commotion. Upon his arrival there, he stopped and marveled at the scene in front of him. He had discovered Zidane and his party engaged in battle with the resident Mist monster overlord. 

_'And I thought Cinna was ugly,'_ Blank thought dismally. Vivi was the furthermost away, using his fire magic to the best of his abilities. His magic was extremely effective, but that was when it hit its mark. Otherwise the blasts were all unsuccessful, as the black mage continued to shut his eyes and fire wherever his hands were pointing. Steiner was up ahead at the front line, to the monster's right, nursing a wounding shoulder but still keeping up the 'good fight'. His heavy sword and bulky armor made it difficult to get in close at times, whereas Zidane's nimbleness and significant _lack_ of armor made it easier to use "Hit and run" tactics. Blank was following Zidane's movements like a bouncing oglop. In, attack, bugger off. In, attack, bugger off. In, attack, bugger off, etc. While efficient, Zidane's dagger work was not going to defeat the monster all on its own, thus the monster was still to a degree, thriving. 

It occurred to Blank at about this time, that he had been watching, and not participating. He decided maybe, he should change that. He charged forward and brought himself level with Zidane on the monkey-tailed teen's right. 

"Whew, I made it just in time," Blank announced, swinging his sword to rest on his shoulder and dropping into his battle stance, "step aside. I'll take care of this." To prove this boast, he dashed forward and ducked under a flailing tentacle and thrust his sword deep into the enemy's abdomen… And successfully proceeded to get his sword stuck. Blank blanched. He heaved at the sword as hard as he could. The monster, which hitherto had not noticed Blank at all, was not at all amused by this incidence, swept its left tentacle across the battlefield, collected Blank in the stomach and sent him flying through the air again (with sword in tow), and as if to add insult to injury, Blank landed in another gauss bush. 

_'Why does God hate me?'_ Blank thought irritably to himself. Again, he tore himself free of the thorny shrub, and leaped onward into the fight for round two. _'I'll put a thorn in **your** side, ya bastard, an iron one…' _he thought, hell bent on charging the monster again. A flash to his left caught his attention. He took a moment to examine the event, and gaped. He wasn't aware that Steiner could use magic…? Although, this thought was thrown away as he noticed the young mage by the knight's side casting what appeared to be a fire enchantment upon Steiner's trusty Pluto Knights addition broadsword. With a sadistic and self-sure grin, the knight leaped towards the 'beast', rising high into t he air as though the wing were carrying him (which in itself is a true miracle of physics), screaming, "For the princess!! I shall smite thee!!"

There was a crash, a fiery whoosh, a clanking thud and a groan. This was followed by an angry shriek. Blank physically closed his mouth with his hand. Steiner returned to his place in the battle line, just as the Mist monster brought its tentacles up above its…head, thing, and the sky grew dark.

"I don't like this, I know this feeling," Blank heard Vivi whimper somewhere to his left. Indeed, it felt as though everything were getting colder for a short moment. Before long, a great thunderous bolt of lightning was crashing down upon the four would-be rescuers. Blank's last thought before it hit was something along the lines of, _'God **does** hate me…'_

The blast hit the ground with an eruption of lightning, spreading up and across the ground with such anger that could rival Ruby when she was having one of her regular tantrums. Surprisingly, Blank found himself completely unscathed if only blown to a different point of the battlefield, with a muttering Zidane nearby grumbling about a singed tail. Blank took note of the other two companions, the knight glugging down a potion and the mage shaking his head as he lay upon the forest floor. The monster, thoroughly pissed that it had not killed them, was noticeably struggling with its own injuries. A grin crept across Blank's face.

"Zidane, now's our chance! Let's go!" Blank encouraged his monkey-tail brother.

"Don't forget me!" came a shout from Steiner, up on his feet and rearing to go.

"And me!" piped up a tiny voice in the wilderness. Vivi appeared from behind Steiner, gripping onto both sides of his oversized hat. The intended rescuers fell upon the monster like ants on a shattered caterpillar. A combination of slashing, hacking, lopping, swearing and spell casting saw the monster broken and beaten. Thus, defeated. 

Blank replaced his sword into its sheath as he allowed himself to pant for a few minutes, not caring about the other's and their action as Steiner attempted to shake some awareness into Garnet. 

"Princess!!! Please get a hold of yourself!" the Pluto Knight Captain pleaded to the groggy princess, who to Blank appeared to have taken on an impressive quantity of poison. He did also notice that Zidane was staring dumbly at Garnet, and it struck Blank that yet again he would have to help him.

"Zidane, give her the stuff," Blank suggested irritably. Zidane nodded to him, crossed over the dead or dying Mist monster and withdrew the medicine Blank had given him earlier. Getting the liquid down the princess' throat proved to be a small challenge. 

"Princess, please try to drink all of it," Steiner encouraged, and Blank turned away from the scene to consider their escape now that the rescue was completed. 

"Is she gonna be okay?" Vivi asked worriedly as the princess was tended to. Blank wasn't concerned about that, he was currently concerned about the ground shaking rumbling that decided to rock the forest at the moment.

"Oh, man! What now!?" Blank demanded the open air, probably echoing the thoughts of the other three companions. At the center of the dwelling a huge hole opened up in the ground, and two large bug creatures climbed out. Blank blanched as a third one entered the room from the doorway he and probably the others had entered through.

_'Holy mother of Gaia and all of her creations,'_ Blank thought. "Sheez! We're gonna be surrounded!"

"Let's get out of here!" Zidane exclaimed.

"GO!" Blank shouted. Steiner, still holding Garnet, and Zidane ran towards the most obvious exit and out. Vivi, Blank found, had not budged.

"What are you waitin' for!?" Blank snapped at him, wondering why the hell the little mage would hang around. The shout seemed to wake Vivi out of a terror-induced stillness and he soon raced out after Steiner and Zidane. Blank returned his attention to the three monsters baring down on him, and he back out of the monster dwelling in great haste. He was both relieved and frustrated that everyone had waited for him. They began the last stage of the escape: the escaping part! 

The four of them were running away from a legion of bug monsters chasing after them. Blank tireless hurtled on with the mage and the knight carrying the princess went on ahead of him. He heard the scuffling of boots behind him however, and turned to find Zidane had stopped.

"What are you doin'!?" Blank near panicked, running back to where his monkey-tailed brother stood. 

"Something's wrong..." Zidane mumbled. As if that wasn't obvious; but Blank couldn't help but ask anyway.

"What?"

"The entire forest is coming after us," Zidane stated, and turned to Blank with a serious look on his face, "Blank... Take care of everyone." Blank was left in puzzlement as Zidane ran off pass him and started to catch up with Vivi and Steiner.

_'What did he mean by that?'_ Blank asked himself, and followed close behind. He resumed the flight to freedom, and indeed Zidane was right and the forest was coming after them. As they rushed along the path, behind them, dozens upon dozens, possibly hundreds, of bug creatures brought up the rear. Blank had enough time to drop back and with a quick burst of speed slammed into the back of Vivi, effectively pushing the mage forward to the front of the group along with Steiner as he cradled Garnet in his arms. Both of them passed Zidane in their race to the exit of the forest. 

The forest monsters were gaining ground, and the desperation of the situation started to fully settle into Blank. He then noticed that Zidane was running slower than usual, as the monkey-tail was normally very quick. But then panic invaded his world. He let his psychic gaze float to behind him and as he was about to overtake Zidane, one of the monsters leaped forward towards his brother. 

_::Flashback::_

"Ever since we were just kids, Zidane has always been takin' off and never tellin' us why or where he went. He could have died on any of those occasions and we'd never see him again."

_::Present::_

_'NO!!'_

Blank threw himself to the side to knock Zidane out of the way of a plant monster's groping pincers and found him in the creature's tight grasp. He struggled and pulled at the appendages as hard as he could, and as he was lifted above the ground the other monsters gathered around what had been caught. A miserable realization of the end came to settle on Blank as he struggled, but up ahead he felt Zidane stop and reach out helplessly to him.

_'The map…' _

Digging it out of one of his many belts Blank launched the map which Baku gave him to Zidane who, still running, picked it up and ran towards the exit, understanding that Blank knew he was not going to make it. Blank observed as Zidane made the final sprint for the exit, but never saw him make it to safety as a wave of petrification swept along the forest. 

Blank had only just thrown the map when he felt his body going cold. Icy cold hands were squeezing his lungs to frigid stillness. His skin was going hard, and soon, Blank's awareness was gone; a blank mind in a stone body

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Zidane pounded on the stone wall of petrified vines, sealing him out of the forest where his brother had been left behind. Why?! Why had he followed him into the forest?!

"Dammit!!! That idiot!" Zidane shouted, punching the wall a final time as the tears ran unchecked down his cheeks. He sobbed for a moment, and then dropped to his knees, murmuring the name of his savior.

"Blank..."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"How are you feeling?" Zidane asked Princess Garnet as she approached him by the wall, where he had been sitting the past two hours. 

"Good...thanks to that medicine you gave me," Garnet answered him, "could this be...?"

"Yeah, I was surprised, too. After we beat that big plant-guy, the forest got completely petrified," Zidane explained, turning around to the wall again. He was still having a hard time coming to terms with the previous night. 

"Vivi told me that we were able to escape because of your friend," came Garnet's voice from behind. Zidane struggled to control his tears from coming forth again. 

"...His name is Blank," Zidane told her.

"We must go help him."

"We can't do anything for him right now."

"But...I can't - "

"We'll come back for him," Zidane promised, turning to the princess with a resolute look on his face, "I'm sure there's a way to cure him." 

Next Chapter - Blank Ways.

~QueenQeeko


End file.
